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This is a whole house STR. So we had a guest who was SUPER NICE. I am about to write my first critical review of a guest. I am looking for feedback as I mention that he was here for a wedding, and mention that implicitly as a mitigating factor, but arguably it’s also irrelevant. I don’t want him to be able to be able to remove the review on the relevance criteria.
What do you think of this review? How would you improve it?
Guest was cordial but did not follow House Rules by exceeding maximum occupancy of six people, both during day and overnight. He was visiting here for a wedding, which might have been a factor. He was given two opportunities to update his number of guests but chose not to. Did not sort trash from recycling, did not use recycling bins at all, put all in trash. Broke or lost pedestal stand for QR code and did not respond to Host inquiry about that. For the most part guests did not wear shoes in house, but sometimes did. One unregistered guest parked on street in a way that blocked owner’s car’s egress but promptly removed car upon request. [Name of guest] and his party were VERY NICE people but did not respect the property. Would not host again.
I think that the review is a bit long-winded and could be edited to be more concise but otherwise I think it’s fine.
I prefer a ‘they broke the rules’ review that specifies exactly what they did rather than the vague ‘better suited to a hotel’ or similar.
None of the issues mentioned would dissuade me from hosting the guest - other hosts would feel very differently. This is why it’s so important to have honest reviews from hosts.
Guest did not follow House Rules by exceeding maximum occupancy of six people, both during day and overnight. Did not sort trash from recycling, did not use recycling bins at all, put all in trash. Broke or lost pedestal stand for QR code and did not respond to Host inquiry about that. One unregistered guest parked on street in a way that blocked owner’s car’s egress. The guest and his party were VERY NICE people but did not respect the property. Would not host again.
I think that VERY NICE and disrespecting several reasonable rules/requests don’t belong together. I agree that the term cordial as suggested by another host or even friendly are OK. Disrespectful people just are not very nice.
This guest does not sound cordial or nice from the review. I guess you might be trying to mix some positives with the negatives so the guest doesn’t feel too bad about the unacceptable behavior.
I don’t think visiting for a wedding justifies having more guests overnight… might be ok during the day but overnight?
“Guest continued to exceed guest number limit despite host reminders, caused and did not report breakage, and did not follow house rules regarding trash disposal. Guest was personable but would not host again.”
“Guest was cordial but did not follow House Rules by exceeding maximum occupancy of six people, both during day and overnight. He was given two opportunities to update his number of guests but chose not to. Did not sort trash from recycling, did not use recycling bins at all, put all in trash. Broke or lost pedestal stand for QR code and did not respond to Host inquiry about that. Would not host again.”
I haven’t changed any of your wording, but eliminated what I felt was not worth mentioning, like shoes in the house (I realize it’s probably one of your house rules, but sounds petty in a review) the line about his unregistered guest’s parking, and the line about being VERY NICE.
How are people who disrespect you, ignore your rules, break things and don’t mention it, and fail to communicate, “nice”? I honestly don’t get it when people say their disrespectful guests were nice. What on earth does “nice” mean in this context?
And reviews are about someone’s suitability as a guest. You aren’t reviewing him as a person, but as a guest. And he was a rude one.
Thank you everyone for your excellent and helpful comments, this group’s welcome lesson in succinctness.
In reviewing my house rules, I see that there is no house rule to separate trash from recycling (just changed that). I did communicate that in messages, but had not been a house rule.
So, based on your comments my review will be:
Cannot recommend. Did not follow House rules, including maximum occupancy, number of registered guests, wearing of shoes in house, parking. Did not respond to Host inquiry about missing item.
When I hear “QR code stand”, I think of a clear plastic stand that costs $2-$3 US. Unless your stand was way more expensive than that, I’d consider that normal wear and tear. And I’d definitely replace it with something inexpensive.
You’re right that it’s inexpensive. The seller is sending me a new one for shipping at a little more than $5. For me it’s the principle of the thing, that they were careless and probably thew it out and that they didn’t respond to my inquiry about it. AND on top of the other issues just shows carelessness. If it were not for the other things I wouldn’t mention it.
With this next one I will glue it to the QR code, which I think will make it less likely for this to recur.
There’s no wall space. I do have a small magnetic one on the refrigerator. We have a large kitchen island on which we place the QR code on pedestal along with the guidebook to area, house manual and various manuals. So the kitchen island is a focus when the guests enter – everything is ‘there.’
I think gluing the pedestal stand to the QR code signage plate will prevent the pedestal becoming lost or thrown out again.
We printed this as a letter-sized poster, laminated it (to make it look official) and attached it to a can’t miss location on the inside of the kitchen cabinet that holds all the plates and bowls. Also during orientation* walk guests through the sorting procedures (with emphasis on “municipal by-law… not optional”).
since COVID guest orientation is done by phone using a script, even though we live in the same building
We actually have something like this for our area, also laminated, that we place on our kitchen island with other information about the house and area.
So I posted the recommended review for this guest (above) – thank you again! – after the guest had posted his review, which was an exuberantly positive review ("best Airbnb I had ever stayed in’).
He responded to me on the platform that he thought that the review was ‘a bit harsh’ and reminded me that he had given me a good review. I responded that it was a review off him as a guest on this occasion, not as a person [thank you @muddy ) and that I felt a duty to inform other Hosts and also him as an invitation to up his game as a guest.
I hadn’t realized that prospective guests won’t easily see our review of his stay. So should I leave things as they are? OR at the end of the 30 days for the date he made his review post a response, saying:
"Thank you for your generous review. Our whole team appreciated your thoughtfulness and kind words. We’re happy your stay was a happy one.
Still, as commented elsewhere, we could not recommend you as a guest. You exceeded the maximum occupancy, exceeded the number of registered guests, didn’t separate trash from recycling and didn’t respond to our inquiry about a missing item. We hope our candid review will encourage you to ‘up’ your game as a guest. Best to you and your family."
My motivation to leaving such a response would be to alert prospective guests that we take occupancy/registered guests and communications seriously and won’t be ‘bought off’ with a positive review.
I feel a little uneasy about doing this, not quite sure why. What do you folks think?
No, forget responding. And that is a terrible response. A response is not another opportunity to give what is essentially a review, and it looks really weird and nasty for a host to respond to a good review by slagging the guest. I would not book with a host who did that.
And if it was a bad review, responses should not be directed at the guest, they should be factual and impersonal, just correcting misleading statements made in a review.
