Hi to all the (Super-) hosts out there,
I totally agree with most of what was said. It seems and feels like as if AIRBNB is trying to turn our humbled places into lookalike hotel accommodations. Definately not what was AIRBNB supposed to be about when it first started. If people want to stay in a hotel during their trip and vaccations no host will stop them from doing so. But if they prefer to stay in an AIRBNB place then they should have the right mindset knowing the differnce between the two of them. Then again, sometimes no matter how much we bend over to make everything as perfect as possible for our guests there always seems to be that one guest in between believing that our places should have the same standards as a hotel. No matter what! Ridiculous.
For instance. When I am not with my AIRBNB project I am working as a stewardess on megayachts for the past ten years. (The TV-Show "Below Deck" is a joke compared to the reality and mainly scripted anyways.) On those yachts you have to maintain cleanliness and tidiness 24/7. The heads (shower, sink, toilet etc.) always have to look like as if they have never been used. So you constantly check up on them and rush right in as soon as somebody had a shower. Tiresome sometimes but you get used to it. The same for the cabins. You always make sure the beds look as tidy and untouched as possible at all times. (Well, in a few cases it depends on the guests too. Not all of them want to have it made constantly.)
My point is that even with my backround and knowledge I still ended up with a rather disappointing review/rating recently. Out of 22 5-Star ratings for my cleanliness I got a 4-Star rating. C'mon, seriously? I have to admit I had the feeling that these guests would not give a 5-Star rating already before they had actually arrived. Simply because the day prior to their arrival they contacted my Co-host Johan and complained that we have forgotten to get in touch with them about their check-in time. Really? On our profile it is clearly stated that the check-in time is flexible. So either our guests are contacting us to let us know when they are approximately will be arriving since we always ask them about that early on in our communications already or we get in touch with them on the day of their arrival. I think that is perfectly ok. However, it wasn't for these particular guests. So I had a rather bad feeling from the start. I guess my gut was right. And not only did they disabroved of the cleanliness they also only gave 4-Stars for the accuracy of the informations provided. Speaking of guests who do not bother to take their time to read the profile carefully and then complain afterwards as a lot of you have mentioned as well. To top it up these guests went even further and only gave a 3-Star rating for the price-value ratio. Again, seriously? As I said in the beginning. If someone wants to stay in a hotel be my guest. But do not come to my humbled place - so you might can save a few bucks - expect to have it set-up like in a hotel and then leave a negativ review. That is just selfish, incompetent, without any consideration. and plain and simple rude!
Since it will probably get more and more unfair and stressful for all the hosts on AIRBNB with the new ratings system I have decided to built a website (unlimitedbnb) based on the initial concept of airbnb but without all that nonsense rating and a few other issues in the near future.
Happy hosting everyone!
On a side note. Here is an article called "Surviving a Bad Airbnb Review" which was written by a guest and then printed in the NY Times. It is worth reading: nytimes.com/2018/01/19/realestate/surviving-a-bad-airbnb-review.html
If AIRBNB desides to delete that link you can also read the story here:
By Ronda Kaysen
For the most part, my home is clean. Dishes get done, counters get wiped. I even keep a cordless vacuum cleaner handy to do battle with the dust bunnies. So, imagine my surprise when I received a bad Airbnb review from the owners of a charming cottage in Cape Cod where my family and I spent a two-week vacation last summer.
Before we left the cottage, my husband and I tidied up, following the host’s instructions. The house lacked some basic supplies, like extra toilet paper and cleaning supplies. But the property was handsome and the host was responsive enough, so I wrote an innocuous review and called it a day.
The next morning, still floating in post-vacation bliss, I opened my email and was snapped back to reality. I was messy! The stove was grimy, the dining table greasy. Someone left “cereal o’s” downstairs. I’m not even sure what “cereal o’s” are, but there they were on my public profile, tainting my permanent record.
My 10-year-old son was mortified. “We got a bad review!” he gasped. All vacation, I had kept the kids in line with the threat of public shaming — “No shrieking in the yard or we could get a bad review.” Yet, in the end, my misdeeds were what brought us down. Would anyone ever rent to me again?
It was a cold reminder that we live in an age of constant feedback. Hop out of an Uber and your phone prompts you to leave a review. Only three stars, you say? Was the driver not friendly enough? Look for a place to eat, and invariably you’ll spend half an hour on Yelp reading various perspectives on the merits of an egg roll.
I admit that I partake in ratings culture. When I booked that cottage online, I sifted through the reviews, trying to glean whether the location was as pristine as the pictures suggested. I didn’t spend much time wondering how those depictions made the host feel — I just wanted to make sure the place wasn’t a dump. I understand that hosts want reassurances, too. No one wants to rent to a person who used the last rental as a temporary brothel or drug den.
But if you think you belong on the good side of the bell curve, it hurts to hear someone tell you that perhaps you do not. When such a critique comes at the end of a long and intimate experience like a stay in an Airbnb house, you can’t help but wonder if it’s true. Maybe I am an incompetent housekeeper.
Stay in someone’s home long enough and you feel like you know the person, even if you have never meet. For two weeks, I admired my host’s book collection (she liked Mary Oliver, my husband’s favorite poet) and looked at her artwork. I glanced at the muck boots in the garage, and imagined a quiet woman pruning those gorgeous hydrangeas in the garden. I spotted a box of art supplies in the closet, and wondered how long she had spent painting that seascape in the bedroom.
In text messages, I told her that we enjoyed the house and let her know when I noticed ants by the front door. Her replies were curt, but she gave me directions for how to address the issue, so I didn’t hold it against her. I assumed she saw me as I saw myself: a considerate and attentive houseguest.
Instead, she saw me as a naughty one.
“Of course you take it personally,” said Paul Levinson, a professor of communications and media studies at Fordham University and the author of “New New Media."
As I sat at my computer, absorbing the criticism, my mind drifted to the review I had left of the house. Since the process is double-blind, guests and hosts can only see each other’s reviews after both have written them. You cannot revise what you wrote in light of new information from the other side, and no wonder. Like in the aftermath of a heated argument, I replayed the words I had written, imagining what I would have said if I had let loose — I’m talking about that ant trail and the scant cleaning supplies (hello! a bottle of Lysol certainly would have helped get the job done).
Since I couldn’t rewrite my own assessment, I instead fired off a response to hers, in defense of my efforts. I hit send and my response appeared publicly below the one she had left of me. It didn’t take long for the doubt to creep in: Maybe, by responding, I looked not only messy, but crazy, too. Mr. Levinson seemed to agree: “The best response is no response,” he said. “You wind up looking defensive no matter what you say.”
Airbnb, however, sees such an exchange in a different light. “That’s how the system should work,” said Nick Shapiro, the global head of trust and risk management at Airbnb. “What’s the alternative?”
Here’s one alternative: Not having my cleaning skills publicly parsed. Other Airbnb guests have also felt burned by a harsh critique. Alrica Goldstein, 42, a book editor in Reno, Nev., was shocked by a bad review she received after staying in an apartment in Kuala Lumpur with her family in August 2016. “I was terribly offended,” she said.
The apartment was left in a sorry state, with a dirty stove and toilet, according to the host. But Ms. Goldstein had not seen the criticism coming. The host had stopped by on checkout day and stayed to chat for a while, never voicing any concerns. “I feel like when you stay in an Airbnb, it’s a community. There’s a give and take and trust,” she said. In this case, Ms. Goldstein felt the circle of trust had been broken.
How much does a bad review harm you? It’s hard to say. But I suspect that naysayers have a way of sounding like soothsayers. “I see just one negative review, and it makes me wonder,” said Turner Wright, the digital media manager for airbnbhell(com), a website that chronicles Airbnb miseries. “Maybe that’s the real one.”
Maybe Mr. Wright was right. Maybe I would be shunned. When it came time to book another stay a few months later, this time in Northampton, Mass., I admit, my heart was racing. “What if they reject us?” my son asked. To improve our chances, I wrote a witty note, one that would paint a picture of a responsible and charming little family. Maybe the owner would fall for it. The host — a superhost, in Airbnb speak, or someone considered experienced and a role model for other hosts — accepted my request within minutes. I had dodged a blacklist!
These reviews are meant to make us better versions of ourselves — next time that stove will sparkle — but maybe they just make us more neurotic.
When we arrived in Northampton after a long drive, tired and disheveled, our host let us into the apartment. “Don’t worry about cleaning up when you leave,” she said. “We’ll take care of it.”
I wanted to believe that she said this to be helpful, but I couldn’t help but wonder if she really said it because she knew I was a slob.
