Guest left a voicemail stating they are going to call airbnb to revoke their positive review in response to my review.

[Heidi599]

Well, I just looked the reviews I have left. And the review for this particular guest was removed.

This is what it said:

Judi and her family stayed in our home for three nights. The house was left relatively clean upon departure. Communication with this guest was mediocre. Judi requested an early check-in at 8 pm the night before her arrival; I messaged back immediately and let her know I wasn't sure I could accommodate her request and would message her once the cleaners completed cleaning. I messaged Judi around noon, the day of check-in, apologized, and let her know the earliest she could check-in was 3 pm (an hour before the standard 4 pm check-in time). As I finished my final walk-through and was about to set the keycode, I noticed a car in the driveway at 2:30. I asked Judi if she hadn't seen my messages, and she replied I hadn't seen hers, which was baffling since I received no response to the two messages I sent. I showed Judi around, and she said the house was beautiful. I messaged her a couple of times during her stay to see how things were going and never received a response. Judi agreed to pay the $50 pet fee before booking the home; however, she didn't pay it within the 72-hour Airbnb grace period. I did not contact Airbnb about this, and Judi did pay the $50 the day after check-out. Judi's reservation was for two guests; however, at least one additional person stayed in the home. I do not charge for extra guests; however, I like to know how many people are staying at my house. While emptying the trash, I had the unpleasant discovery of finding used, unbagged "pee pads" in the smaller trash bin that I need to transfer to the large city bin. I would recommend that in the future if Judi would like to check in early, the host should be contacted at least a few days in advance to allow for the opportunity to accommodate the request.

I posted the review yesterday and now it's gone. Her review is still up. 

This is her review: 

This host deserves so much credit. This home is in wonderful shape and is super clean and has top notch appliances and linens. The backyard was perfect for our 2 dogs.
Heidi exceeded our expectations in every single way!

So, this is what happens if you are honest about reviewing someone. Is this review really that bad? It's all factual. Do I owe it call these people back after two weeks,  that didn't communicate the entire time they were at our house?  

[Karla533]

I'm sorry this experience left a bad taste in your mouth. We all want to have fun doing this, and not feel like we're being treated as door mats.

In fact it's clear your guests really did appreciate everything you've done. You're clearly very good at this and your guests recognized your competence and caring.

I will certainly get criticized for this, but I think your wordy review was much ado about almost nothing. I also think the guests greatly over reacted. It sounds like a case of mismatched expectations.

Judi paid the pet fee eventually, right?, and left things "relatively clean." To me that's 5 stars for clean.

Do you provide a note about trash? I make a copy of Santa Fe's trash/recycling flyer and then leave specific instructions for glass bottles, for example. Everybody so far has been great with trash.

Judi showed up a little early, but no harm, no foul in my book.

It's entirely possible messages were not getting through. She may have unreliable email and some people just use email, not the ABB app.

However-- to me the real problem is that extra person. I'm assuming you actually saw this person stay overnight, say with a video recording.

Adding an extra person without permission is a red flag to me and I would really want to see that in a host's review. If occupancy is in your house rules, then that's where they would lose star(s),  I would say.

We have to have a permit for STR here in nearby Santa Fe and maximum occupancy law is part of what we are required to comply with.

If heaven forbid there were a fire or a flood, excess occupancy could become a real problem.

Just my opinion folks 🙂

So an extra person could put my permit to operate in jeopardy and therefore that is not negotiable.

[Heidi599]

Hi @Karla533, thanks for your feedback.

This is the first experience I've had with this (thankfully) and you can read how distressed I am over it.

I do care about my guests experience and absolutely LOVE being a host. I have always accommodated early check-ins, but that's because I knew up front and was able to schedule accordingly.

I know for sure that she had her adult daughter staying at the house. I could review the video camera, but haven't at this point to see who else was there.

My manual is thorough with instructions about everything. I guess I need to tell them to bag their "pee-pads"?

I guess the reason I am having such a hard time with this is because I genuinely take pride in my airbnb and I was super bummed that I  reviewed a guest unfavorably, but felt others and the guest should know my experience.

[Heidi599]

Oh and @Karla533, she eventually did pay the pet fee. It was just annoying she kept putting it off. Principal thing for me, not about the money. She agreed to it.

[Kelly149]

@Heidi599 I'm pretty sure that specificity of bodily fluids will just about always get a review pulled and it's too bad, bc these are guests no one who's paying attention actually wants. Unfortunately ABB reviews are a shell-game, you have to hide the nut just enough while still getting the message across. You'll know better next time.

[Heidi599]

@Kelly149 Oh man, is that something that is is their policies? I mean, it's gross right? The rest of their trash was bagged, just not the 5 pee pads! The reason I included it was so the guest would also know not to do this!

[Sarah977]

@Heidi599  "The rest of their trash was bagged, just not the 5 pee pads! The reason I included it was so the guest would also know not to do this!"

If you want to educate a guest about something like this, it would be best to do it in private feedback to the guest. 

[Heidi599]

Follow up to this: I called AirBnb and the representative I spoke to was so nice and understanding. Basically what happens is the guest wants to have my review of them removed or they want to post a rebuttal to my review which does not happen. AirBnb took my review of the guest down while checking to make sure it does not review their policy. The rep said it takes about 48 hours. If they find it violates their policy I will receive an email, if it does not, the review will be posted back on the guest's account. I blocked the guest on airbnb and on my phone, because they departed 2 weeks ago, and this is stressing me out. I can see why hosts don't want to leave honest, unfavorable reviews, no one wants to be contacted by the guest because they are unhappy with the review.

[Colleen253]

@Heidi599 here is the review policy for your own information,

https://www.airbnb.ca/help/article/2673/airbnbs-review-policy

Its always wise to be discreet, while still getting the important info across, and brief, when writing a difficult review. This cuts down on the risk of a review being removed. It’s also best to take your time and perhaps allow a few days to get perspective, especially if you’re really upset.

Note that many times guests, most particularly new ones, don’t get messages because they don’t have notifications turned on. It’s a shame Airbnb doesn’t prompt guests to do this, and to be watchful for messages from their host. In my acceptance reply, I include a prompt to turn on notifications. This helps. 

[Helen744]

Helen @744 yep the notification thing is super important . I send a text early to make sure their contacts are working. H

[Heidi599]

@Colleen253  yes the consensus is that people do not check their messages. Funny for someone who stated she used to be a host. I also texted her a couple of times with the same messages to ensure she received them and she did not respond to those either.

[Gillian166]

---

@Colleen253 wrote:

Note that many times guests, most particularly new ones, don’t get messages because they don’t have notifications turned on. It’s a shame Airbnb doesn’t prompt guests to do this, and to be watchful for messages from their host. In my acceptance reply, I include a prompt to turn on notifications. This helps. 

---

more great advice, thank you for sharing that. I swear sometimes people just fly blind and drive vaguely towards my location, and then call me up when they are 2km away and want turn by turn directions from me, lol. I will now include something about being sure to have the app installed on their phone. 

[Sarah977]

@Heidi599  I'm not sure what you mean by "or they can post a rebutttal to my review which does not happen".

Both hosts and guests can leave a response to a review. I don't know what the time limit is to do that after the reviews are published. There is no need to stress about a guest leaving a public response to a review. The responses they leave appear on their profile page, not yours- future guests will never see them.

I don't quite understand why you offered to take your review down for "checking". 

You should always leave honest reviews, but I agree with Karla that your review was much too wordy and nit-picky. It's fine to get that detailed here on the forum- for instance hosts will post all the gritty details here of what they experienced with a guest, so others have a full picture, then ask for review suggestions or ask if they are expecting too much from guests and is this normal guest behavior.

When you write a review, think about what you would want to know about a guest if you were another host reading a guest's reviews. Do I need to know all those details, or do I just need to come away with a general idea of whether this was a good guest or one to decline?

For sure you don't want to be entirely general, because what might bother one host might not bother another, so we do need to know some basic things about a guest. For instance, a guest who was socially uncomfortable, super shy and unable to engage in easygoing banter and squirrelled themselves away in their room, only scurrying quickly in and out to use the bathroom or kitchen, might be unsuitable for a home-share situation, but that quality wouldn't matter in an entire house listing. However, I wouldn't say in a review that the guest was socially challenged, I'd say "This guest may be better suited to an entire place listing, as they didn't appear to be at ease in relating to others in our home-share." 

We don't need to know in a review all the back and forth about the check-in time, that the guest arrived at 2:30, when you told her 3, and was sitting in her car in the driveway, for instance. If she tried to enter before 3, that could all be condensed to "disrespected check-in time". If she was just sitting there in her car waiting until 3, it wouldn't seem like a big deal to me, although I realize it was annoying and pressuring. 

Gross garbage is something that is just part and parcel of hosting sometimes. No need to be specific about it. If guests dealt poorly with garbage, either let it go or "garbage was not disposed of in a respectful way". No one needs to know they were pee pads, sanitary pads, condoms or anything else. 

Reviews should be factual, not based on or coming across as an expression of your feelings of annoyance.

Your review could have been condensed to

"Judy left the home reasonably clean and tidy with no damage. Her dogs caused no issues.  Communication was mediocre and we rushed to accommodate her push for early check-in. There was an undisclosed extra guest. There were a number of other things about this 3 night stay that were no big deal if taken separately, but taken as a whole, left us feeling irritated and disrespected."

[Helen744]

Helen @744 . Guests send a message to the hosT and a message for posting, a host fills in the star rating and is supposed to leave a few lines for a review' worst guest ever " is short.After the end of the period of fourteen days or immediately both have filled in the reviews they become public .anyone booking or looking to book can see them . Only the host has right of reply after this not the guest. H

[Sarah977]

@Helen744  That isn't true. I have seen many guest responses to reviews that were left by hosts.