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That’s exactly the kind of listing I have. I will say that very recently, this summer and fall, I’ve had more bookings of 2 to 5 nights and right now I have a cash client who is here on a long term but temporary work assignment. He first booked in August and has verbally committed to dates through xmas. So I’m getting a bit of a break but when he’s not here I make the room available on Airbnb. So this weekend the cash client checks out Saturday morning. I have 2 different airbnb guests on Sat and Sun and the cash client checks back in on Monday night. So three turnovers in three days. The last two years I’m about 90% booked, about 80% of that was one nighters and my average price is under $50 a night.
I agree that things that cost me more, annoy me more. That’s why I have a second person fee and I don’t agree with raising my price and making everyone pay for 2 people. But I would if I could get $80 a night, min 2 night bookings and a $35 cleaning fee on top of that.
In Airbnbing, dog boarding and classroom teaching there is so much outside your control except for your attitude towards it. I came into the Airbnb business with a background and a home that was just exceptionally well suited to it. It’s better to be lucky than good.
I would write something like "Thank you for your stay. I appreciate your business. I hate to sound like a nag but eating in bed left quite a mess and wish you had told me about the floaded bathroom. " I would not mention the huge garbage bag or the rearranging of the welcome board.
I think it’s disrespectful to mess up the board, but if it were just that, no biggie. Combined with the other? Asses. Leave a honest, short, dispassionate review and move on.
I would definitely mention the flooded bathroom and the food stains. The trash - assuming it was appropriately in a trash can - I would not mention. I wouldn’t say anything about the board, either.
Thinking back to my college days (back in the dark ages!), I wonder if these folks smoked a lot of weed while they were there? The board rearranging, lots of trash both sound like they got stoned. And maybe they clogged the toilet and it overflowed and they just didn’t notice it…
Actually you are choosing your own situation and are probably quite happy that business is booming. You could also set a free day between bookings and stress out less about it.
Then you could finish the scrabble board with the missing words …
I just had a guest who booked on IB. He had 3 reviews one of which, the first one, was truly dreadful claiming he had broken something and refused to pay for it. It was a DNR. When he was here he was a really lovely guy and while we were chatting I asked him about his first bad review which he explained (obviously his side of the story). Anyway the place was left in great condition and I gave him a 5 star review. It occurred to me:
everyone deserves a second chance
we’ll probably never know the real story
maybe a bad review early on for a newbie does work by making them think and change their behaviour for later hosts so a well worded review pointing out what they did wrong could have a positive effect.
Hi there - these guest gave you extra work and were a bit inconsiderate that is true. The car issue just emphasised the fact that they can afford this car as they are saving money else where i. e. Staying at your very affordable accommodation and that is shrewd. Were they young perhaps? Lesson learnt !
Why should the host apologise for mentioning how the guest broke their house rules and for mentioning the flooded bathroom @Ritz3?
The review just needs to be factual. " Disappointed to see XX was disrespectful of our home. They broke our house rules by eating in the bedroom and leaving a mess there, they also flooded the bathroom and didn’t let us know. Would not want to host these guests again".
The host is not sounding like a nag for just stating their experience of hosting the guest.
We have a smaller scale blackboard and we write a ‘Welcome XYZ’ on it for each guest. Occasionally we get a lovely message in response - this was from our very first guests 10 months ago:
It says “Lang may yer lum reek”. It’s a Scots greeting, used at Hogmanay (new year’s eve - they stayed 2 nights before it), meaning “May you never be without fuel for your fire!”.
What a lovely saying! Some guests can. Make up for the horror shows others are.
For some reasons we seem to have a lot of young couples book with us and have found them to be easy to deal with and very respectful .the couple who left this morning after a 5 day stay gave me some flavored teas and selection of snacks for my husband because he loved snacks. actually we have been very blessed with the guests we have had so far. I know the guest from he’ll will show up sometime.
