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I answered right away before checking reviews. She didn’t accept the special offer right away so that gave me a chance to grab some coffee and look at her reviews. The written reviews were okay. There’s at least one for what looks like a third party booking, maybe it’s her spouse. But the stars weren’t great:
This is on just 5 reviews so I realize that there might have just been one messy stay or one nit picky host but I decided it’s not a chance I need to take. (edit: with a half star there has to be 2 or more hosts who deducted stars…I think?) Strike one, request for discount. Strike two, makes third party bookings. Strike three, isn’t a 5 star across the board guest.
Her date is no longer available. I’m going to be in the room caulking and painting that day.
I’d love to write back and say “once I saw that you don’t have 5 stars for cleanliness I decided to withdraw the offer. Airbnb policies state that the room should be left in the condition you found it and if you can’t do that, you can’t stay here, especially not with cats.”
Agreed. Anything that reinforces the idea in guests’ brains that they too are reviewed and given stars, which may effect their ability to book in the future, is a good thing as far as I’m concerned.
I have two sets of guests coming up that I’m slightly concerned about. Not concerned enough to decline them, but concerned enough to put a stricter sounding version of my house rules written in multiple languages on the fridge.
It mentions that any smoking or parties will result in evictions, fines and poor Airbnb reviews. I know the thing about fines is just talk, but they don’t necessarily know this.
Luckily I’m just installing new baseboards and trim around a door. I’m painting first, then installing, caulking, then touch up paint. I just had the Airbnb room tiled (no more installed carpet anywhere in this home, yay!). I don’t find the “professionals” work to be to my standard. They are lazy, make crappy cuts and then slather on the caulk to hide their mistakes. They don’t know how to make a smooth bead and they don’t clean up well. So I’m in there anyway with a scrubber and a razor blade; I might as well do it myself. I don’t have an electric mitre saw, just a miter box and and hand saw. All my masochistic urges are satiated by my desired to do my own mitre cuts.
LOL. She probably wanted a discount on a $48 room. $20 of that is the discounted pet fee (discounted from the full $15 per per per night).
It’s just not professional. If I thought it would change anything about the guest I’d consider it but, nah.
I have had no issues with my cat travelers, this is just strictly based on the three strikes I described above. None of the reviews sounded like there were any cats. Each one was different. One she was traveling with a friend, one with “your girls,” one was addressed to some dude, one referred to a “family.”
I think it would change things going forward. I have educated a discount seeker before and the guest thanked me. I told him that many hosts consider it a red flag and sometimes will block the dates after declining.
As I said to Jaquo, this is a three strikes for me case. And for some it would be 4 (CATS!) or 5 strikes. I think this woman is waving red flag and I’m not sure getting her to stop is in the best interests of my fellow hosts.
I’ve only had one family with cats. They were temporarily homeless, between rentals, but only told me that after they’d arrived. The cats peed everywhere; the guests went into my linen store (I know, I should have locked it) and took extra towels and all my bath mats, presumably for bedding or to soak up the urine. When they left, they loaded all the towels into the washing machine, along with far too much powder, and set it on a 4 hour cycle. (House rules say towels in bath to send to the laundry). It overflowed onto the floor. I wasn’t there, my cleaner switched it off, mopped up the water but couldn’t empty the full machine. The next guests were due in 2 hours.
So not a good cat experience. The guests moved on, I gave them a very bad review but, since they never reviewed me, it wouldn’t have been published until 2 weeks and several hosts later. Furthermore, they had used a different account for the initial enquiry so they probably changed accounts again.
This sort of deception should be grounds for cancellation; yes hindsight is 20/20.
For a full home rental I would probably have to build in a day between rentals. Even with just my small ensuite room I sometimes have to hustle to get done in the 4 hour window I have.
That’s one of the really frustrating things about the 2 week window.
That’s a horrible experience altogether and I think I’d quit allowing pets if I had anything like that happen here.
We block the night before and after reservations. It sucks when they only book 2 days but I will be offering fewer 2-day opportunities next year. I already have the big weekends set for 3 day minimums, and the cheap early-week days that rarely book. Which ended up landing a 4 night Sunday-Thursday booking as I had hoped.
Try same day turnovers with two apartments. I have a five hour window though and it’s not often that both apartments are turning over on the same day, thank goodness
I agree. I allow 5 hours for changeover. 3 hours for cleaning etc and an extra 2 as contingency. It’s worked for over 100 guests. I’m probably lucky as we’re in a pretty and rural part of southern England and attract guests who like the pretty, old cottage. I suspect they’re more obliging than the average Airbnb clients. In this case the (inexperienced) cleaner from the agency only told me the problem when she finished her standard 3 hours for the changeover. Thankfully I had a good person who was able to fix it all.
That is why we need a full day blocked after checkout. First guests that ever stayed broke my blinds (thank you, I wanted to replace that one anyway but couldn’t justify it until y’all broke it for me!). To replace them required an hour round trip just to get to the gettin’ place.
If it’s an IB you can cancel 3x a year no questions asked if you feel “uncomfortable.” I’d probably feel uncomfortable with deceptive people with no where to go in my cottage. You initially sounded a bit put off by them but now you sound like everything was pretty rosy.
I agree. And without being there it’s hard to say what I’d do in the same situation. OTOH, I’m running a rental not a social service agency. As I said your tone in the subsequent post seems different so maybe a different approach than mine is appropriate.
After the recent dog accident on my carpet I blocked out 3 days so I could clean and then I followed up with a professional cleaning, (followed up by ripping out the carpet and putting in tile.) If I have to cancel on someone it would most likely be a one night booking so less risk.
Well it certainly wasn’t rosy. They were all very big and one of them bent my sofa bed. I toyed with stating the manufacturer’s weight limit for all my beds after that but decided after reading some comments on this site that I should just “suck it up”. Anyway, I thought if I refuse an IB I lose my SuperHost status. Am I wrong about that? a[quote=“KKC, post:19, topic:33603”]
everything was pretty rosy
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