my advice would be to wait less than a last minute to review, just prepare to copy paste, you will even have seconds countdown, I think this is new feature you can see it like this… I once made a mistake and posted 3 minutes before expiry and got a bad review in return, so from now on I will wait till the last 20 seconds to post it, just to be sure.
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17seconds!! that’s gotta win a prize. haha.
it sounds like your previous guests were also waiting til the end to leave a bad review.
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But curtains aren’t as versatile. Sometimes you don’t want complete darkness and to block your view looking out but also don’t want all the sunlight on hot, sunny days and allow people to see in. Blinds allow you to filter and customize light. Blackout curtains (which you need, especially in sunny climates) do not do that.
I believe there are a few ways to access this info. I go to the calendar page, click on the guest reservation and to the right it will show you the number of days left to review. Until the last day it will show you number of days. On the last day their will be a countdown time showing how many hours and then minutes you have.
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Just make sure her review is posted before yours is. We had a nightmare rental that KNEW no parties, but they vomited on everything and liquor was everywhere. We posted too early and they roasted us for our ONLY non-five-star rating.
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Who are these guests who are incapable of leaving the lavatory clean?! That’s not acceptable in my book. I would mention that in review - other hosts need to know.
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You get a price for the cleaning/repair/missing items and send it to airbnb with an explanation - usually with photo evidence and within a time-limit - 24 hours? They ask the guest to pay. Usually the guest disputes and refuses to pay. Then you escalate. And in the end if it’s a fair complaint airbnb pays you.
It’s about time they started to do this as they make a hell of a lot of money out of hosts’ hard work, stress levels and goodwill.
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I love the idea of charging double for a “deep clean” with that posted in the handbook. So you request money from them at what point? I would assume as soon as you ask (request through resolution center” your likelihood of a good review goes out the window, no?
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Blockquote So I took over. Now I can let my OCD fly and I get rewarded for it, because one thing I know for sure is that I will never get less than 5 stars for cleanliness!
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So sorry that you had this experience with one of your first guests but a couple of notes:
I have to concur with other hosts who advise against any discrimination against new, un-reviewed guests and their conduct in your home. The two are unrelated. We have all been new once and if its any indication, I have had more guests with previous fine reviews who have acted disrespectfully in my home moreso than new ones…(even the ones I am initially wary about always seem to surprise me.
And secondly, while its become popular to mistake having OCD, which is a seriously distressing mental health disorder, for being someone who is a fastidious and orderly clean freak, is a seriously inappropriate misonomer.
OCD has nothing to do with being orderly or clean. Yes, for some people that have it, the compulsion to be clean features largely. But it is not a representation of the illness (and for those certain individuals, it actually has nothing to do with being anal about cleaning) . For many people, being clean has nothing whatsoever to do with it. Many people with OCD actually spend so much time on their compulsions that their houses are in mad disarray.
For most people, the compulsions center around washing hands, counting, repeating words or sayings, crossing your arms, stepping on certain parts of the sidewalk, checking your stove or the lock on your front door, etc, etc.
There is a mental health condition that centers around being clean, orderly and fastidious to the point of lifestyle breakdown but it isn’t OCD. And to casually assign yourself as such in conversation indicates to me that you likely do not suffer from it either. Count your lucky stars (no pun intended) 
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What you say is true, however over-the-top cleanliness can also be a manifestation of OCD. A friend of mine has diagnosed OCD and was in therapy for it for many years. Used to be, she couldn’t sleep on a set of sheets for more than one night, changing them daily and ironing all of it. This despite the fact that she also would never get in bed without having directly stepped out of the shower.
She also thoroughly cleaned the toilet every time she used it.
At one point, she fostered a little dog, and was bathing it daily until the rescue shelter and the vet impressed upon her that it was bad for the dog, that it would develop a skin condition if she continued, that dogs can’t be bathed that often.
Because of the therapy, she is no longer quite so compulsive, and is now able to recognize when she is getting compulsive again, that it intensifies when she is stressed out and tries to deal with what is stressing her.
But her cleanliness obsessions and compulsions are not at all the same as just being a fastidious cleaner who notices every detail, and likes everything to look clean, as you point out.
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What you are describing can also be called OCPD. Obsessive Compulsive Personality Disorder. People often confuse the two all the time. OCD is a disorder highly characterized by a set of Compulsions that are not the same for everyone (as I previously described) while OCPD is always characterized by an insane directive to be compulsively orderly and fastidious.
OCD is mainly governed by obsessive thoughts that the sufferer can only rid themselves of by carrying through with the compulsions. Ie, I have seriously disturbing violent thoughts (like my mother will die or I may push someone into traffic) that are not characteristic of my general thought processes. I can only stop thinking those thoughts if I step on exactly 17 sidewalk blocks on the way home from school or if I don’t make certain my oven is off by turning it off and on exactly 3 times.
Does that make sense?
Yes, it does. My mother would have been descibed as OCPD. She had to go around and check that all the doors were locked 2 or 3 times before going to bed. Even if my father said he already locked up (and he wasn’t some irresponsible guy, nor a drinker. There was no reason not to trust him at his word.)
She also hoarded some bizarre things like old lipstick tubes that you’d have to dig into to get enough lipstick out of them to get a few dabs. She had a box full of them. If there ever came some apocalypse and lipstick was no longer available, I doubt anyone would be particularly concerned about their make-up.
I think your original review is ok. I have hosted many folks with no reviews and 99% of them have been excellent guests. I am an on site host who gives an orientation regarding the does and don’ts of the place. I only had one guest who was a slob. Same thing as far as food on the walls, towels everywhere. However, I do a cleaning of these areas anyway so I let it slide BUT this slob had booked a few nights stay the following week so I cancelled it. I subsequently found out this person goes by various names and has been banned by practically every airb&b in these parts. I thought about going away from insta booking because of this guest but decided to stay with it because if something about their insta booking draws your suspicion, you can cancel it without penalty from Airb&b.
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Why is it that blinds are so hard to operate by guests? I have been replacing mine about once a year in my units. They seem to be prone to failure.
I once had a guest have their wedding photos taken in the unit and their photographer pulled all the blinds down off the windows and destroyed them in the process.
Either way, first time guests (aka no review) are not always bad, I have had plenty of good ones that leave the place spotless and don’t cause any trouble. I have also had guests with 5 star reviews leave the place a mess. You take the good with the bad and it averages out.
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It isn’t just guests. I have never had blinds in any home I have lived in and find them really fussy to deal with, and there are different types that work in different ways. If one is accustomed to blinds, you may think they’re a no-brainer to operate, but they aren’t. And they are easily damaged.
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Ah, the line between careless and malicious.
Careless = “I don’t give a f@ck.”
Malicious = “I’d like you to KNOW for a fact that I really DO NOT GIVE A F@CK!”
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Good you cottoned on to his scheme! If someone who was such a slob was able to instabook, despite being banned by other airbnbs, that suggests other hosts weren’t ticking the “would not host again” button when they reviewed him. Things that make you go HMMM
Even if every host he had ticked “Would not host again”, he could still send booking requests.
Ticking that box doesn’t even necessarily mean he couldn’t IB, as far as I’m aware.
When hosts set their requirements to IB, the checkbox says “Recommended by other hosts” or something like that. But nowhere does it say how many other hosts have to have recommended him, nor whether if he had 6 previous hosts say Would Not Host Again and one who had said they would, does that mean he was recommended by other hosts?
As far as I’m aware, Airbnb has never disclosed or clarified how low of a star rating disqualifies a guest from IBing, nor what qualifies as “Recommended by other hosts”.
I liked your definitions of careless and malicious. 
But to get serious about it, careless isn’t always “I don’t give a f**k”. Some people are just naturally klutzy or inattentive. They might break things accidentally for those reasons, but feel bad about it and offer compensation.
I remember quite a few things that got broken in my house back when my daughters were teenagers, by their male friends who grew a foot in a year and weren’t used to their new bodies, and how long their arms or legs actually were. 
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I think your statement I’ve quoted removes this type of person from the careless category. They DO care, enough to have feelings about their behavior and maybe even compensate the host. This to me is a much better mode than a truly careless person. I guess another comparison could be: “Oops! Oh well!” vs. “Oops, I guess I should pay for that/let them know…”
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