As a guest, responding to bad review

[Melissa1734]

I’m a good guest and have had 8 stellar reviews. Today I got one saying we left a huge mess. (We didnt—we loaded washer as instructed, didnt hit start because a carbon alarm started going off and we focused on that and forgot). ‘Huge mess’ is not hitting start on washer. Is there a way to respond?

[Anonymous]

@Melissa1734  For reference, this is the review you're referring to:

melissa was an incredibly nice woman to communicate with. i rented my home to her bc she had outstanding reviews. however she and her friends left the house in an enormous mess. firstly they left late, around 1pm, which delayed our cleaning. my cleaner was in the driveway at 12:15 waiting to start. food and crumbs everywhere, uncleaned dishes everywhere, no laundry started. i request all guests before confirming a booking if they can clean dishes before leaving and start laundry. i also send reminder messages. melissa agreed to all of these and did none. i am extremely displeased and it took 4 straight hours to clean the house which usually takes 2. the guests who came after were delayed bc of this. i would not rent to melissa again despite her being a very nice person

Looking at this as a host, the most alarming detail to me is actually the host's expectation that guests start the laundry. It sounds like he's cutting too many corners with the cleaning, and I wouldn't trust the home to be properly sanitized.

That said, his other complaints sound credible enough that a public response with anything other than an apology would probably do more harm than good. Next time you request an Airbnb, you might want to offer some assurance that you've carefully read the checkout time and House Rules. Most hosts will see the review as just one of many, and an outlier.

Bonus points for the fact that you write detailed and enthusiastic positive reviews for your hosts. This should tip the decision in your favor if a host is on the fence about accepting you - we hate late checkouts but we truly dread bad reviews. 

[Melissa1734]

Thank you—much appreciated. We were late leaving because a carbon monoxide alarm went off and we spent an hour trying to figure it out. Then saw the cleaning crew pull up and hauled out. Ah well. I am a glass half full lady—takes a lot to not get five stars! 

[Sarah977]

@Melissa1734 Why would you spend an hour trying to figure out why the carbon monoxide alarm was going off? For starters, if a CO alarm is going off, you should get out of the house- it is there to warn you there is a danger of CO poisoning. And that's the sort of thing you call the host about, not try to figure out yourself. 

[Melissa1734]

I never experienced a CO alarm—thought it was like a smoke alarm—windows and fans. Won’t happen again!

update: we messaged and resolved the issue. Wonder if he can update the review?

[Sarah977]

@Melissa1734  A CO detector detects carbon monoxide in the unit, which can kill you in an enclosed space. So you are correct that opening windows turning on fans is a good idea, as it will air the place out, but mostly you should get out of the space until it can be determined why it is going off. Carbon monoxide is produced by improper combustion of gas. It doesn't mean there's a gas leak- it doesn't detect that, and you can usually smell a gas leak. It indicates a gas appliance that isn't combusting properly, and producing CO, which is odorless. Like people die of carbon monoxide poisoning by sitting in a closed garage with the car running, either on purpose to commit suicide, or by accident because they don't understand the danger.

The detector could also just be malfunctioning, the way smoke alarms start beeping if the batteries are almost dead. But just assuming it's malfunctioning sort of negates the purpose of having one there at all.

Reviews cannot be changed or edited after they are published. But the reviewer can ask Airbnb to remove the review they wrote entirely. So you could ask the host if they would be willing to do that if they now understand what happened and aren't upset with you anymore.

[Linda108]

@Melissa1734   Both you and the host have glowing reviews.  While your posted reviews cannot be removed, perhaps a step you can take in the future is to communicate with the host about any issue you are unable to QUICKLY resolve yourself.  If you ran out of the house due to the alarm, you could have called or messaged the host right away about the problem which would have been of help to him in dealing with the cleaning crew as well.  I agree with @Anonymous assessment of requiring guests to do the laundry, but you obviously knew and accepted that requirement.  

If you are still able to provide a response to the negative review and the host is not able or willing to remove, a short apologetic explanation will provide prospective hosts a better understanding given the other positive reviews.

Both hosts and guests can make mistakes or have unexpected problems, but that does not define the quality of either.  Good, timely communication can go a long way to maintaining a good standing in the Air BNB community.