All our rooms are booked for most of the summer. Two women came an hour ago to their room. I immediately saw on the looks on their faces something was wrong. They didn’t take of their shoes, walked all over the house in them and did not smile back.
Half an hour later they called me to them and said they were not happy. The room was in the middle of the house and had sliding doors. They had no privacy. They wanted to go elsewhere and they wanted their money back. All of this is stated in my listing plus the possibility of noise because of children. But I wanted them to go, it was obvious I was not going to get a good review and didn’t want their negativity around me.
I did repay them because it was obvious otherwise this would be a problem. Now I have an empty room
Most of all I am venting but I am not happy with this situation. I feel like I was forced to repay to stay out of trouble.
YOU should never have repaid them. If they want compensation it is up to them to take it up with Airbnb. And when Air calls and askes you to pay them – just say NO!
Now you will likely still get a bad review AND be out the money…
Well, I had them cancel. I said the had to cancel to get repaid. But if they can still review me I can review them. “Better suited for hotel.”
They can review you and you can review them. Most hosts will agree that the better suited to a hotel review doesn’t tell them much and is a cop out. Is this listing a private room where you also live?
Yes, it is. It is very clear in my listing that the room is in the middle of the house, the family lives in the house, it has sliding doors and there are both kids and pets in the house. I made all of this very clear so people would know what they are getting into.
You’re a bit late to be contacting Airbnb, you authorised a refund so it’s a done deal as far as they’re concerned.
Chalk it down to experience and if it happens again, tell the guests they need to take it up with Airbnb. Hopefully, you just happened to get your nutters for the year, the rest of guests will be as good as gold 
JF
Thank you, I hope so No, I know I won’t get my money back but I was wondering if I should let airbnb know the situation. But I probably won’t. I just had my feathers ruffled a bit
No point in contacting Airbnb and I’ve no idea why you gave then a refund. But as for this…
What does that tell me? If these guests instant book with me or with another host, how do we know what to expect from that comment?
I once saw this as a suggestion to review entitled guests in a thread here.
What I asked was how we are expected to know about the guest if you write ‘better suited to a hotel’?
How about guest did not read listing details and the chose to leave early. Maybe a hotel room would be best for them
I agree with those who say it is a little too late to contact Airbnb. However, in the review you are asked whether you would book again and you can say no without them seeing that. Then, if asked for an explanation, you can cut and paste what you just described. I have found that few people read the whole description. I actually include a floorplan in my pictures that shows the location of the key rooms and people still seem clueless. I have toyed with having a laminated copy of the room description in each room so people might review it before they acted surprised. I have also heard of hosts requiring guests to say that they have read the full description, but that sounded a little too corporate for me.
This is absolutely a problem. But no one can make guests read, not even Airbnb. I just had a guest yesterday book, arrive, cancel and it was clear he didn’t read the listing information. I did give a partial refund for similar reasons…just get rid of them. But I also got paid for nothing and the room might not have been booked anyway. Now I await the bad review.
Honestly, it seems the guests are lower quality all the time and we will have to learn to deal with it.
I think we have to accept that it seems that people don’t read. We’ve had plenty of hosts posting here who a) have answered topics making it obvious that they haven’t read it properly and b) it’s sometimes evident that they have signed up to use Airbnb without even casting a glance at the TOS.
Maybe it’s society as a whole that’s getting a shorter attention span. (I admit that I’ve noticed that happening to me over the years). Or maybe it’s because so much is done on the tiny phone screen and we can’t be bothered to scroll more.
Or maybe it’s just the frantic pace of life and everyone is so very rushed these days, what with having to update their Facebook profile all the time, needing to take photos of their dinner to upload to Instagram… so very busy 
Yes, a lot of hosts use this as a euphemism for exactly the kind of guests you describe. But it is not clear enough for many hosts who DO actually run their places like mini-hotels or are off-site hosts.
I’ve had guests like you describe, though they didn’t cancel they just were horrible the whole time. I reviewed them thus:
“X and Y left the room clean and tidy and respected all house rules. However, this was an uncomfortable hosting experience for me. They made it very clear that my home was not to their liking and, frankly, I was glad when they left. I would not host them again and only recommend them to off-site hosts or those that offer champagne at beer prices”.
Ok, I didn’t really say the last bit. Having written it, though, I wish I had!
@We2 You CANNOT survive in this business if you hold yourself hostage to reviews. You need to step back and see if anything they say is reasonable. If it is - fix it. Or try to. If it’s not possible - be up-front and honest about it.
If they’re just c***y guests… there’s nothing to be done except rage at the moon and employ your dark arts to curse them for ever more.
This has happened a couple of times this year. Never before. I visit your room, decide I don’t like it, and poof! No responsibility. I can even call Air and ask to be rehoused, with a credit.
Does any other hotelier do this?
I do EXACTLY that, and that they have read all the house rules and insist that they state that in an Airbnb message. It has saved me a LOT of problems, of this I am completely convinced!
Quite true. But it was very uncomfortable and I really just wanted them out.
I have photos of the sliding doors. They don’t even look at the pictures 