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They brought extra guests against your house rules and left that kind of review?? They broke the rules and then slammed you? I would see if Air might be able to remove that review?? I’d be furious… !
It’s especially unfair to bang on about things that are disclosed in the listing. Just emphasize that to Air and maybe they can remove some of it.
Idiot guests.
I almost sprayed coffee on my keyboard from laughing so hard. Your parrots were “noisier than expected”. I think the one thing most people know about parrots is that they are loud. We have a group of feral parrots who hang out in the Magnolia tree in front of our house. When they are talking to each other it is really loud.
I have a parrot story. Many years ago, my husband and I were traveling in Costa Rica. We were in our hotel in the early morning. We heard a dog crying like it was being tortured. I asked my husband to go and make whoever was hurting the dog stop. My husband came back laughing so hard I thought he’d bust something. It was a parrot imitating a dog.
Find the nicest, most objective way you can to say it and say it without emotion and be honest.
But, in my experience, leave at least one thing out.
I had a guest who left the apartment in a complete shambles, she nagged me endlessly and arrived early, she treated me like a servant. But I probably would have given her my usual - lovely person + comment on the weather during their stay.
However, she also left half-full beer bottles in the trash, smoked in the apartment and left every single window open. She also neglected to text us when she was leaving - which is one of our rules so we know when it’s safe to enter the suite.
In short, she was the worst guest we ever had. Hands down. In the review I said, clearly and as unemotionally as possible, that the apartment looked as though she was just leaving for a few minutes and would be right back, the windows were wide open, there was rain coming in on our new floors. I also said I found a cigarette package wrapper in the bedroom. I let the reader put the pieces together themselves.
She was furious and blasted me privately, to the point where I stopped reading her messages, then she called Airbnb, who of course had a full account from me and could see that our rules were strictly no-smoking, so they knew what was up.
She didn’t get any traction. What she did do was put the review she gave us on her own page. Cut and pasted it - along with a rant. She just made herself look bad. It has had no impact on us that I can discern.
I think the thing is, give yourself some breathing room before you write the review - we typically wait until the very last minute if we don’t like a guest. And be cool, objective and just as you do in your listing - undersell. Don’t tell it all just hit the high points. Remember there are no paragraph breaks in reviews. More than a few lines and you look a little hysterical.
I also find it helps a great deal to tell Airbnb everything that went wrong in the section for private feedback. That way, they’ve got your back. Honesty, transparency and courtesy go a long way in a bad review.
That’s my best advice - only ever had to warn people off a guest about three times and I was subtle enough not to humiliate the guest in the process. I think that’s key.
Just want to add a reminder to leave it at the last minute in their time zone if they haven’t reviewed you…so it doesn’t prompt a response.
I even say in my listing, “Parrots are loud!”
However I am proud to say my parrots follow the quiet hours… unlike some guests.
Yes! They are the group with extra people. They show up with three and complain that the bed for the unexpected third person is not comfortable (the bed is described in the listing as an older pull-out couch, who expects those to be comfortable!!!???). They should be appreciative I had a second bed at all!
I’ve had a handful of guests complain about carrying their luggage through the garden walkway in private feedback, yet NONE of them will use the private parking in the back, which has a paved ramp leading right up to the door. I take great care to explain both options for navigating my property, too, and they always come through the garden and always complain!
Aargh, such unreasonable kvetches you get. I recommend a dry gin martini for you. It’s 5:00 somewhere in the world.
It’s too bad you can’t throw a towel over the guests’ cage to get them to be quiet. This is a joke everyone.
The only thing I would suggest is maybe have a picture of the parrots so it’s very clear. People will look at all the pictures and just skim the words…
I love your bedding, it’s gorgeous! And good news, I saw the review and due to it being shrunk, you only see the more positive parts!
The other thing important to remember is to write the review and then let it go. Put it behind you, shake it off and forget about it.
The only thing worse than a bad guest is carrying around that bad taste in your mouth later.
Oh - and one other personal trick? When I have an unreasonable guest who complains about something, I consider it and if I think they’re wrong, I go into the listing and do the exact opposite of what they ask.
Think we offer poor value? Okay, I’ll go into the listing and raise the price. We are not a flop house and we don’t want bargain hunters.
Don’t like the fact that there’s wildlife around the house? Want us to do something about that, like trap them maybe? (possums, skunks, bunnies, groundhogs) okay - I’ll go into the listing and make sure I highlight the fact that we live on the edge of the forest and you are going to see wildlife at our house, they live here, this is their home, please be kind and polite to them. If they bother you - don’t come to our house. They’re part of the balance of our organic garden.
Think the iron is complicated to use? Wait till you see the one I replace it with.
It’s small stuff but it gets good results and it makes me feel better.
Oh, and I also remove amenities for difficult guests. They don’t know because they never see the stuff we offer to nice people but I know and it makes it easier for me to tolerate a jerk.
I would have made them uncomfortable about that third guest. I would have withheld bedding until they asked, I would have explained how uncomfortable the bed is and encouraged them to find alternative lodgings. I would not have explained how. I would not have offered a refund.
Sometimes you need to step back and take a hard look at who caused the problem and put the responsibility for fixing it back in their laps.
But then again, as I’ve said before, my whole brand is Airbnb soupnazi. I don’t even pretend to be easy.
And we’re booked 80 per cent of the time, and we’ve always been superhosts.
@Stephanie_Borns would you be willing to share your listing? Or PM with it. Other than the nazi part it sounds like a place I’d like to stay.
Thank you for the compliment. We have always relied on our reputation and while I am happy to share all of my secrets about dealing with our relatively rare problem guests, I would be more comfortable sharing our listing under a more positive topic heading.
We don’t know each other and my boundaries are pretty firm. And, it does seem to me, KarmaCasa, that you have suggested I leave the group at least once before.
And then laughed about it.
It’s a trust issue.
Great read…still chuckling
I need to bookmark for future reference lol 
I wasn’t so much suggesting you leave the forum as I was trying to suggest to you the nature of the forum. You chose to be rude about it and I laughed it off. I didn’t take the exchange seriously at all and honestly, forgot it was you that was so rude. Thanks for reminding me who you are. Since you have such firm boundaries, why do you use what appears to be your real name on this forum?
Can you explain what you mean? Do you mean that you highlight this for the guest being rude or do you change it in the listing?
What - you mean your name isn’t K9KarmaCasa?! I’m shocked.
I think it’s rude of you to keep pressing on me.
Not exactly. I look at what they suggest and if there is merit in it, I’ll change it. If not, I mean - if it is clearly way out of line, like we’ve given them a deal or let them have an extra guest without charging them etc. then I will hardline it.
Someone who complains that our price is too high, when I know we’re well under what the Holiday Inn is charging for a plain room, for example, might prompt me to raise our price.
We don’t want to attract the kind of guest who would stay at the Holiday Inn so, obviously, our price was too low - they proved it.
We had a very nice iron that was very easy to use in the suite as far as I was concerned - one of our guests (one who returns to us and loves us despite my efforts to convince her we are not a good fit) complained about it - voila, new iron, cheaper iron, worse iron - but new iron.
Complain about not being able to bake and I will be sure its absolutely clear that there is no opportunity to bake in the suite. If she thought she could cobble together the means to bake in the suite then clearly I have left too many utensils in the kitchen, I went in and took out anything that might give the impression that you are welcome to bake in our listing.
It’s all a matter of fine tuning and I do notice that complaints highlight areas that do need changing, they just may not need changing to suit that particular type of guest, rather they may need changing in order to repel that kind of guest.
I don’t want to be everybody’s cup of tea. We are trying to build a very strong and specific type of guest clientele. We want the business to be able to stand with or without Airbnb.
Don’t worry, even my decrepit memory will remember you now.
Can we please all just get along? 
How about we each post a photo of our dog or cat. I don’t think I’ve seen Karma’s. Everyone’s seen my little princess so I won’t bore you again. 
