Unsolicited 'advice' from guest

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Flax… it all depends on how you worded it. If you actually say there’s noise to be aware of, it might be too much and your husband could be right.

In the case of Chicago, she has real kid noise and discloses it. In your case, you say you are tip toeing around and not making noise. So I think I would word it carefully. Just maybe make sure they know it is the bottom floor and describe it exactly. Don’t mention the noise per se. because… it sounds to me like there really isn’t any, and this could be the only idiot who ever complains about it.

As for screening… If anyone tries to bargain you down and ask for discounts, that is a red flag and kick them to the curb. As others have said and you have learned. You can tell a lot (but not everything) from the way they approach you. When Air first started it was common to bargain, but now, not so much.

I tell people exactly what they are getting and what they are not getting. It took me a while to refine the copy (and I write ad copy for a living!) but I now have my description so fine-tuned that I rarely get the wrong type of guests through AirBnB.

It’s awful when clods criticize you, your home and your hospitality. A pox on them!

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Actually DC, in this case, I would probably advise Flax to ignore the bad review and not respond. That way, it will scroll more quickly off the page.

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Flax & DC… paper towels are something I DO NOT buy for my unit. I don’t even buy them for myself. They can buy their own or use tea towels. Better for the environment and saves money. I don’t even use them in my house. They are expensive and a waste of trees. :slight_smile:

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Hi Flax,

Welcome!!

Listen to these good people, they’re all giving good advice here. My thoughts - guests will always find something to complain about. Good thing is that most don’t because they realize you’re an AirBnB and not a 5* hotel, but sometimes, regardless of how perfect everything is, they will find something.

For example, I have one of those lovely friends who will clean his plate in the restaurant and then complain to the waitress, just so he gets the attention he craves. This is common with most (unjustified) complainers - only when they feel they have your undivided attention they are happy. You can find a way to make this work, or not - as you wish! Your house, your rules :slight_smile:

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I would recommend not to deal with people who negotiate heavily.
US travelers on average are more demanding than the rest of the world because of service culture in US.
I don’t what else you can do about noise complain. You sound proofed the door, you try to be quiet when guests are home. In your description just make it clear you live upstairs and they should be prepared for some noise of people moving.
And what does he mean, noisy at night? Everyone is asleep right?
We rent downstairs bedroom and we walk upstairs in a morning. One guest said, he hears us early In a morning. Well, we live here, I said, and we walk, I don’t know what else we can do. He said, it doesn’t bother him, he just mentioned it, hehe.

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I don’t think you should keep your family so quiet when you have guests. Of course shouting, and running all the time may be not such a good idea, but talking normally and laughing is what you should be doing. It’s your home after all and you will burn out quickly if you keeps whispering or tippy toeing.

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Flax,

Sorry to hear about these demanding Americans. The name kitchen roll sounds like paper towels but maybe someone can chime in to say if they are the same thing. Did they use any of the kitchen roll? Was it in a cabinet and they didn’t see it?

This goes back to people who use Airbnb and just assume that because you offer a kitchen or washer/dryer that you are also supposed to provide everything that they possibly need. One of my friend’s rents out three entire homes and he tells guests what he does provide but says to bring your own paper towels. And I do not provide laundry detergent…guests can purchase their own.

Your place does not sound like it would be that noisy. Have you stayed in the rental alone and asked your husband and kids to behave like no one is staying below? And then also ask them to behave like they do when there are guests? How odd for them to complain about all this noise and you are mostly staying on the 4th floor! I would do a test just in case. I wonder if these Americans have never lived in a bottom floor apartment and don’t realize the rest of the world doesn’t have the luxury of living in complete silence. I would hate for you to note something in the listing and there really isn’t a noise issue.

I have lived in places where you can really hear noise. In one apartment in Spain it was like clock work every morning. The toddler downstairs would start screaming and whaling early in the morning.

One thing I provide is a white noise machine for each bedroom in my rental. There are no neighbors but wildlife can be an issue. Certain times of the year the frogs are so out of control shrieking on the property. But if someone really is a light sleeper they can turn on both white noise machines as long it doesn’t blow off a breaker.

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cabin - do you have a brand of white-noise machine you like, or can you give any other guidance on how to select one? We do have a fan in there, but I like the idea of the white-noise machine

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I got this one from Amazon for $49.95. It has two settings that sound just like ssshhhhhh. I put one in each bedroom with a note in the box that says that there is another one in the other bedroom in case they would like to use both of them. I did a lot of research and this one had the most consistent reviews.

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The frogs sound like my place at the moment. I love the sound but luckily no complaints as yet. We once had someone complain that the quails kept them awake!

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You’ve been given a great welcome and great advice from the community here Flaxhigh! Can I just offer my understanding for the situation you just endured with your guest complaining about obviously small things and making it seem like you failed as a host on a major level. Of course he is ridiculous, ungracious, ungrateful, lacking manners, but most likely he was probably trying to scam you. The clues are in his seeking a discount in the beginning. It makes no sense for him to bargain your price down. If you were out of his budget, he should be searching for properties within his budget, not trying to force properties outside of his budget to lower their price to suit him. In fact in future you might try what I do when someone comes along with that line. I say something like ‘I’m sorry to hear of your budgetary constraints, however I’m sure you will find some wonderful properties by using the search feature that allows you to look at properties within your means. Let me know if you need any more help (they are simple sliders) or alternatively you can contact Airbnb’ . That gives them the strong message that them not having enough money isn’t my problem, I’m not desperate enough to deal with that BS, and although I am being very helpful, I’m also letting them know that I am not interested in dealing with them further as far as talking about booking my property (I don’t book to bargainers). Many time this will make a bargainer feel really silly, and even make them desperate to stay in your place because they really wanted to in the first place but are just the kind of person to ‘try it on’. Again, I don’t really want the kind of guest that will try to see what they can get away with. Although I think I have taken in guests that tried it on and then quickly realized it was a bad idea and stayed, loved it and behaved. Some people are just like kids begging for boundaries,

He sounds like the kind of guest I had a while back. Failed at bargaining with you, he’s moved on to try the old ‘hair in my meal’ trick. Yes, apparently you’re doing a wonderful job there, as the poor bugger could only come up with straining to see if they could hear any signs of life from your home above, no doubt as they sat in silence glaring at the little puddle of milk on the coffee table, turning red with anger due to not being able to find the paper towel/kitchen roll where they expected it to be. Who wants to use the kitchen sponge when you can waste piles of paper towels? Of course his demands are perfectly reasonable, that you should have been able to read his mind and teleported the kitchen roll to him in his hour of need, and that your little toes should have floated above the surface of your flooring like an angel with your angelic floaty children as you communicated to one another in telepathy so as not to bother Mr Cranky. Totally fair remarks.

In all seriousness, I do believe his complaints were to try to get you to offer him a discount. I have had a situation play out so similarly (also an American), and I didn’t realize until mid way through what he was playing at. From the era of ‘the customer is always right’, this is the kind of guy that has taken full advantage of companies and restaurants desire to get good customer reviews and feedback, and have made complaining for discounts and freebies a lifestyle. Typically 50+ men and women, and for some reason they feel it will work just as nicely at Airbnb, after all, the host is looking for a nice review, right?

But hang on, to continue playing the game, the guest needs good reviews too. Considering this guy was an oaf; rude and condescending, and caused you to feel like a failure despite all your efforts to make them comfortable, he gets a big thumbs down as a guest. He didn’t appear to be considerate of the hosts feelings or recognize that being a home stay he couldn’t expect a soundproofed hotel room (not that you get that in a hotel anyway). I truly hope above all that you give an honest review to the guest so you can help nip this behavior in the bud. He needs to realize this reviewing thing goes both ways. Politeness and the way people treat each other on peer to peer platforms isn’t just a one way experience, both users should feel good about the exchange.

I’m glad you checked how noisy it really is from above so you have an idea if his descriptions of ‘incessant noise’ were in any way close to reality even though it’s pretty obvious that given you sleep at night and were often out that he is making a massive exaggeration (again something people who want refunds and discounts do. They pretend it was just UNBEARABLE, to try to guilt you into feeling like you shouldn’t take their money for having tortured them so). It’s hard to take, especially when in the beginning you are doing extras, and I can imagine the sweet thoughts you had in your mind when setting up the apartment, hoping they would appreciate the special effort you’d made. It’s pretty insulting.

As far as the practical advice, we too live above our guests bedrooms, which becomes an issue in the evenings when in our older home it is not well soundproofed between floors and very creaky, so we tip toe about, keep our voices low and watch our tv on extremely low volume so as not to disturb our guests. It’s mainly just the one room that we are right over the top of (although our bathroom is over another room, and sitting area over another room). When we sound tested we were shocked how well sound carried, not how little! Nonetheless, we have never had a single complaint, or any kind of mention of it. That said, we’re not relaxed, and it does totally impinge on our lifestyle. We really only book for weekends mainly, so we can handle not being able to relax in our own home for a couple of nights a week. Your situation is totally different. If all you can really hear is fairly faint footsteps (ours is loud creaks), and faint voices (you could almost hear our full voices if we spoke in normal voices from some places), then it sounds totally ideal for hosting, and like you will be highly unlikely to have any complaints after this. I truly think this was one of those charming people that just has to feel like he swindled himself a deal, and couldn’t be happy until he’d done so.

Still the advice to describe accurately is great, but no need to downplay what you have or overstate the possibility of noise, funnily we never thought to mention noise because we’re all sharing a big old home which can be noisy and everyone needs to be aware of how much noise they’re making. We do mention that we live on the fourth floor too.

All the best wishes going forward, and weeding out these types if you can - sometimes they don’t show their cards until you’ve already hit accept, so it’s always good to keep coming back and learning amazing things from some of the wonderfully experienced hosts here.

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I once had a FlipKey guest walk off the property because we were upstairs. “I don’t think it was going to be UNDER a house and I can hear noise upstairs.” Mind you, we are tip toing, keeping the TV turned to a 3 and the video games with headphones only. Yet she can hear us. She can hear my dog’s toenails on the floor upstairs. That bothers her. It was not what she expected.

(Hello, it’s all over my description that the unit is on the garden level of a single family home…)

She left with five days on her reservation. Good riddance.

FlipKey sends the weirdest guests… inexperienced travelers who REALLY expect too much. If you think Air is bad, try renting to FlipKey guests. Because it’s affiliated with Trip Advisor they think they are getting the five star place for two star prices.

Or as it’s known to a few of us here, FLOPKEY. :smile:

Yana is right, you cannot please everyone. I think if you take another look at your description Flax, you will be able to fine tune it to mention that the unit is downstairs, and you guys live upstairs… without coming right out and saying there is “noise.:”

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By the way, one thing to try is to actually spend a full night down below to see what things you really do hear. I did that once after a guest said the mattress was “lumpy.” It’s not! Damned guests!

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Thanks everyone for all your help - it’s so useful and supportive - thanks so much.

I think you’re absolutely right Chicago: one wants to attract the right people to your home. Interesting that you feel negative reviews hurt bookings more than disclosure - you are probably right. I fear disclosing about a problem that most people are fine about. But I’m going to veer on the safe side, anyway, and disclose.

I think the issue is probably with the character of this person. I’m actually very noise sensitive, but unless I was staying in a very posh hotel who’d given me a dud room and for which I had paid a bomb, I would never mention it. I recently stayed in a flat in Norwich (UK) which was described as quiet and it was a house away from a 5 lane motorway. I still didn’t complain!

Full disclosure is the right way to go I feel, and having not realised that people might not ‘get’ what a lower ground floor flat actually is, I’ve now made it very clear. I’m not going to bang on about the noise in particular other than that they can expect a normal, ‘every day’ kind of living noise albeit that we do make an effort to be quiet and don’t hold parties/play music etc…

Good point about ignoring a bad review so it will scroll off the page konacoconutz! I’m like you, constantly re-writing the copy…

Yes, the paper towels. I now realise there is no cultural difference. I gave him a roll, he wanted another: in one week!

Yana, how funny - such a good answer: ‘We live here…and we walk…!’ I agree, I do think I need to lighten up about the fear of bad reviews. Perfectionist attitudes are great for part of the deal (my cleaning, communication and location get 5 stars!) but are only useful up to a point. I can’t kill myself keeping quiet or, more to the point, ruin my kids’ childhood!

So right dcmooney, give as much info as possible - but I’m sure people don’t read it. They look at the location and photos and think: I want to stay there, that’s it.

So far as sound-reducing noise. Obviously, rugs/carpet on floor above. But you can’t do that in a kitchen, can you? We trimmed the connecting door with soundproofing tape, as from research, apparently, most noise comes from gaps around the door, rather than through the door itself. And then we place - yes we do! - a really heavy thick single mattress against the door which acts as a thick barrier. Luckily it’s not too noticeable for us as the door is down some stairs which we don’t use when we rent out the flat.

There was kitchen roll, cabinhost, fully visible! I tend to provide everything that guests need, detergent, washing up liquid, teatowels, loo roll, welcome basket of food, tea, coffee, jam, butter, bread, hotel type tray of snacks, bottled water, etc etc. I am going to do a proper test run of the noise with the mattress in place and see for myself how noisy we actually are!

Yes, Julie, you’re quite right. Why some people are such ‘half glass empty types’ I don’t know. They’re on holiday, they didn’t pay that much - why not enjoy life?

Many thanks GoodbyeSandy - you may well be right. I felt a bit sorry actually for his wife who seemed quite downtrodden and actually left me a really sweet note next to his. That’s rather sad, isn’t it? Oh no…I’m now almost starting to feel sorry for them!! I think your idea about dealing with bargain hunters is so good and I am going to adopt it, if I may. I feel exactly the same: if you can’t afford it, look elsewhere.

Thanks again everyone - I really appreciate it and feel much, much better now!

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Thanks so much!
this post must be at least 20 characters!

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I know what you mean, flax, I almost wish I’d get my first bad review so I could move on and lighten up.

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From the colonies hahah :joy:

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Oh…that’s just plain wrong. So this couple went through a full kitchen roll in a week (not sure how large yours are) and then was upset because there wasn’t a back up roll?? I would be irritated if someone asked me for extra paper towels.

They need to go buy some extra napkins at the store if they must use so many…geez! These Airbnb guests who expect everything are going to be deeply disappointed when they rent full spaces on other sites. Then they will realize how good they had it when they see a new place with one lonely roll of toilet paper provided…and they have to buy everything else at the store!

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I don’t even buy them, as I say… and never have this issue. Do provide plenty of tea and dish towels so they have alternatives. Often, they can’t stand it and buy their own kitchen rolls, leaving them in the studio upon checkout. Then I bring them upstairs! :slight_smile:

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The only thing I can see them using them for is napkins (but don’t be wasteful), wiping up a spill on the floor (so you don’t use a dish cloth for that), and when cooking and frying something where the grease needs to soak off from the food. Or at least that’s what I use them for.

And then I get some guests who use dish drying cloths like they are paper towels. Who the hell wipes up counter spills with their dish drying cloth instead of the dish washing cloth? People are something else for sure! Dish drying cloths full of broccoli, mustard and ketchup…wtf??

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