What’s different about it? You have to wonder why they would take the time to tell you it’s different than described instead of just fixing the listing and avoiding that confusion down the road.
They said the couch folded into a bed in the listing description, and I asked if that meant I could sleep on the couch, and they said no (after waiting for over a week for a reply).
I’m at my AirBnB stay right now (completing 3 out of 5 nights) and I am having an EXCELLENT experience. I’m staying in one of the few remaining old school Brooklyn apartments, in a trendy neighborhood, and the locals I’m visiting are marveling at the price. The place is WAY nicer than the pictures let on. I see why it has five star reviews. And the hosts are super chill and let us have friends over, in a shared apartment. This has been great because we’re visiting friends and family on a budget, so it is nice to have a place to sit and relax and chat.
However, I am also getting a different perspective on hosting. The place is tidy, but was not clean upon arrival (dust, crumbs, cobwebs). Not a big deal but it definitely shows me I’m going above and beyond in my cleanliness. And the hosts are friendly when you prompt conversation but generally disinterested in my party. Maybe that will be me after I’ve been hosting for years, too!
Xena, i just had guests who ran from Air room they rented to my house. They described that it smelled like cats terribly, hair was everywhere, dried toothpaste in a bathroom, crumbs, and they were not sure if bed was changed.
I could not believe what i was hearing. I wash floors every time a guest leaves, before next arrives. The reason is because they wear their shoes in side, and i want floor to be clean even for bare feet. My bathroom is cleaned and vacuumed twice after each guest.
Yesterday, a lady stayed in one of the rooms. She discovered a tiny hair in a shower that i missed, one hair. She made a picture of it and sent to me. We were out, and having dinner, and suddenly i get this message. I asked her right away if she wants to find another place. I would refund her. She said, no, its fine, but now she has to clean the whole bathroom by herself to feel comfortable. I asked her to not use any sprays or any chemical solution because the bathroom is marble, and solutions can damage it.
She left early in a morning, and i made pictures of what she left: 3 large towels just dropped everywhere on a floor soaking wet on my marble floor. Hair everywhere, toothpaste even on a mirror.
I sent her the pictures saying one word “seriously??”. She still did not answer me.
But i will still keep maintaining my cleanliness and be more carefull about those hair that so easy to miss sometimes
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Good for you - I think I would have done the same. If someone has the audacity to send you a photo of one hair then well, they had it coming. It’s a bathroom ffs of course there is going to be the odd missed hair.
There must be a psychological word for people that expect so much of others, yet so little of themselves, as if they are ‘special’. Your response was perfect, I would have adopted the same approach, shame them. Maintaining your exceptional level of cleanliness should have everyone ‘covered’.
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Oh, Yana - what an absolute frustration. She must never clean for herself, so can’t understand how hairs are really little demons that hide when you’re cleaning and spring out when you’re not looking.
See? People talk about not wanting to rent to older/younger/Chinese/whatever, but this type of guest would be on MY list - a guest who is obviously accustomed to having someone clean up after them, someone who believes they can expect perfection from others and then leave all their stuff for someone else to clean. I had some guests who live in a country where labor is so cheap they have cooks, maids, etc. Their towels and bathrobes were disgusting - never seen anything like it. But they were nice, intelligent people! I’m sure they rarely, if ever, had to do their own laundry so they don’t think about what they are doing. So how can you regulate that? You can’t. For me I just suck it up and remind myself that the other 98% of my guests aren’t that way.
The other guests I’ve realized I don’t prefer is the ones just arriving in the US. The jet lag makes them sluggish and the schedule the keep isn’t great for my situation, since I’m frantic about not making noise and disturbing my guests when they are resting. They aren’t doing anything wrong or inappropriate, of course - but they aren’t in sync with the rest of the home. It’s all fine, just not my favorite.
Although I did have a beautiful family from Germany arrive and they haven’t hardly stopped moving since! PERFECT guests - clean, friend, no cooking - they leave at 9 and arrive around midnight. This is what I call EASY money - and makes up for that other family who cooked food with heavy odor every morning -
OK that’s an off-topic rant, lol!!
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Yikes Yana!
I think some hosts (the ones who wouldn’t bother to post on a forum) don’t care about reviews. My traveling companion asked today if she could sleep on the couch in the common room due to a bad back (we’d asked before we arrived too, as I discussed earlier in the thread). My friend, who is brand new to AirBnB, is shocked that they don’t care what we’ll say in the review.
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One great experience as a guest, one not-so-great. The first was the gold standard for hosting, he was really attentive and seemed to truly care that we had a great stay. The place had a couple of small niggles but considering the wonderful owner we could overlook them. The second looked shabby-chique in the photos but turned out to be just shabby. The manager (who wasn’t the owner) was very friendly and he did move quickly on the most major issues, but there were just so many small details that the whole experience was disappointing - lack of dishes and cutlery, no sink plug or dish liquid, no kettle, no matches for the stove, a tear in the sheets, bathroom had cracked tiles and hadn’t been cleaned, the toilet door didn’t close, the tap was faulty. Etc etc etc. What I took away from these two places was how critical it is to keep assuring your guest that you want them to be happy, and how much the small details really matter.
I’d definitely rent again from AirBnB, it was still good value either way.
I agree with you that small details matter, but we also need to consider that we are staying in someones home. Its not a hotel with required standards for the stars. Everyone has different style of living. Details that matter to you might not matter to a host. For example, i had one guest who gave me 6 things that he thinks i need to provide for guests: hairdryer, mirror in a bedroom, shades in bathroom window, water bottles in a room, mattress pads, lamp on an night table. I only agreed on one:lamp and bought it right away. The rest were just nonsense to me. I explained to him that he can get filtered water from fridge, there is no need for mirror in a bedroom as there is a full size in a bathroom and so on.
He came to my house telling me how i should run my household.
The only non excusable thing fo rme is if its not clean. There can be many cracks in tiles but it can be still clean. It can be shabby because owner does not have money to fix it but clean and tidy.I stayed in the most poor houses where there were hardly any furniture but places were spotless.
SHe was an American, young woman in her 30s.
Oh I’m with you Yana - I’m actually fairly easy to please despite my laundry list of complaints up there 
All I really want is a clean place to sleep and relax, and a good coffee. You just get tired when every corner you turn makes “boring life” quite difficult. We paid quite a lot, comparatively, for what was a pretty lacking apartment (they had four listings at the time and they also own a nightclub with accommodation, so it wasn’t their home).
I’m also surprised how many guests seem to buy themselves bottled water. This city has fantastic, clean water (maybe I need to be telling them it’s safe to drink). The hairdryer I have actually gets used, but the iron… hardly ever. I’m even tossing up removing the tv, since everyone seems to bring laptops now.
I got home from my trip a few days ago, and overall had a good experience staying in NYC. I have a few complaints about cleanliness, accuracy, and communication, but overall think I’ll leave a five-star review because my traveling companion was a high maintenance guest who asked for special accommodations (sleeping in the common room because the bed hurt her back), and they gave her those accommodations! I would have said no if I were the host. I’m so strict. but I don’t want to be one of those guests who nitpicks after having special needs accommodated.
Do I as a host use an AirBnB when travelling? Depends on my needs, the location and the purpose of my trip. I don’t have any set policy. Just back from Thailand where I used hotels primarily for their location. There were many AirBnBs about but as I was time poor, I didn’t want to take a chance and get a place I may be disappointed in. Also, most hotels have more reviews for me to look at through either Trip Advisor, Booking.com Agoda etc.
Another trip was to Sydney for a conference. Needed 3 nights. Purely after a bed as the schedule was very tight. Hotels were around $300 per night. Ouch! Used an AirBnB. $100 for a bedroom with a shared bathroom. Location excellent. Host was very experienced. The other room was also taken up by a conference attendee as well. This got me thinking. At the conference, I asked around where attendees were staying. Most at the conference hotel, but a significant number at local AirBnB’s. Mostly due to price points and the fact there was no pressure to book months or weeks ahead for the hotel. (The hotel had a time sensitive deal).
So no set answer. Just about to head off on a domestic trip. No schedule. No fixed itinerary. Will consider my options a day or so out. This is where those with Instant book options will benefit no doubt.
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