Guest review. Asking for feedback from the community.

[Abrasha-and-Maria0]

My wife and I have been hosts since March of 2018. We have only received 5 star reviews from our guests (72). Before Covid most of our guests were business travelers typically staying 4 to 7 days. About 75% of those travelers were actually Airbnb employees possibly because our home is only a few blocks away from Airbnb headquarters. All of our travelers would spend the day outside the apartment and only use it to sleep there. 

In 2020 things changed of course. First we were completely shut down. When things started again around November and because of the City of San Francisco required quarantine rules we had to change our minimum stay to 10 days. We now received grandparents visiting family, a young man moving to San Francisco for a new job, and most recently a young lawyer for 18 days who said he has many friends in San Francisco and was able to work remotely. When he left the place was a total mess and he also created damage. I have already sent him a personal note requesting payment for the damage, and I have also claimed the damage with Airbnb through the proper channel. The guest has so far not responded to my request for payment.

We have never left a negative review for any of our guests, and our reviews are typically just a few sentences long. We have been hesitant to leave a review for him. We have written a draft review and I would like to post it here and hopefully get responses from the community as to the appropriateness of such a review before we decide to post it. Here it is:

When Xxxxxx checked in he was friendly and polite. I was happy to welcome him to our home and show him around our place. During his 18 day stay we hardly noticed him. Maria's last words to him were, "we hope you'll stay with us again".

We provide house rules for all our guest well in advance and a copy in the space. During his stay the only thing we noticed is that even though we had told him in the house rules to regularly put his trash outside his front door, and how to do this, he only did this twice with large amounts of trash. We ask people to recycle and compost and we provide bins for that, since in SF the city's Mandatory Recycling and Composting Ordinance, requires all of San Francisco to separate recyclable materials, compostable materials and landfilled trash. Many people don't get this right, so we just did it ourselves.

After Xxxxxx checked out, we waited to enter the apartment for 24 hours because of new Airbnb Covid rules regarding proper and safe cleaning protocol. This is when the big surprise hit us square in the face. The apartment was a mess. 

• The dining table was piled high with bags and boxes of garbage. A mixture of trash, recyclables, and compostable. The trashcan inside the closet reserved for recyclables was empty, yet the closet itself was piled high with garbage.
  

• He broke the “No smoking anywhere on the property” house rule. We found ash on the carpet and floors throughout the apartment, as well as an empty cannabis container, and the apartment still smells.
  

• The suede couch has been stained with what we can only assume was body butter. We must have it professionally cleaned.
  

• The coffee table and dining table were also stained to the point that they have to be refinished.

We take pride in the WOW factor all our guests enjoy when they entered and over the three years as Super Hosts, we haven't had such an issue. It's taking us quite a bit of time to get the place back to clean and we're thankful we had it blocked off after Xxxxxx's departure giving us time to manage our way back to a clean space for our future guests."

Any comment would be appreciated.

[Sarah977]

@Abrasha-and-Maria0  I also lost the original response I had written on your first disappeared post 😞

All you have described about the guest's behavior here is good for other hosts to know in other to advise you on the review, but it's far too long and detailed for a review. 

The purpose of the review is to warn other hosts who might get a booking request from him about your experience with this guest- for that, no one needs all the gritty details. Everything falls under 3 categories- disrespecting the house rules, causing damage, and leaving a huge mess, so condense it. Reviews need to be concise.

Colleen, the other host who had replied to your original, lost post, had a good suggested review. Maybe she'll post it again here.

Like she did, I'd advise to mention the positive (friendly, polite, quiet) and then something like "Unfortunately, after check-out, we found that house rules had been ignored ( much evidence and smell of indoor smoking), there were many damages to floors and furniture, trash was piled everywhere,  and cleaning time required was quite extensive. Perhaps he can learn to be respectful of the space he inhabits in the future, but we cannot recommend this guest."

[Anonymous]

@Abrasha-and-Maria0  It's a well-written story, but way too much detail for a review. You can lose about 95% of it and still get the necessary points across.

I'd first recommend taking out all of the sentences where you talk about yourselves, because you are not the subjects of this review. Maybe put those words aside in case you feel the need to post a response to the guest's review of you.

Then, I'd whittle the rest of it down to the bare facts that you'd like to have known before accepting this guest's request. For example, "____ communicated well prior to his arrival, and during his 18 day stay we barely noticed him. However, after his departure we discovered that our House Rules concerning smoking and trash separation were not respected.  An apparent lack of care for our furniture resulted in damage, and more than the usual amount of cleaning was required."     

If the time window for the guest to respond to your Resolution request is still pending, you might want to hold off on publishing the review until after the guest responds. The guest might redeem himself in the eyes of some hosts if he accepts responsibility for the charges, but if the guest ignores the request or turns nasty, your account of the Communication will be rather different.

[Sarah977]

@Abrasha-and-Maria0  One thing I had written in my response to your original post which disappeared was that in the future, you might want to institute a quick weekly cleaning if you are going to take longer term bookings, which is something some hosts do. It can just be a linen and towel change, a quick vacuum, etc. It isn't intended to be maid service to clean up their personal messes or wash their dishes.

If you have a policy to do this on more than week-long bookings, it can help to:

A. Keep the place from getting too dirty if you have a dirty guest.

B. Lets you see how the guest is living in there- if they are smoking or have snuck a pet in, or have reeking garbage everywhere, you might then decide to boot them out or at least have a talk with them about respectful living habits.

C. May lead to the guest being more respectful and clean if they know you are going to be coming in once a week, rather than not until after they leave.

Of course this is something you would need to state in your ad, and reiterate when guests book. If they indicate they want complete privacy and don't want the weekly cleaning, you just say that isn't an option, it's how you run your business and perhaps they should book elsewhere, then.

And you would need to arrange a convenient time for both you and the guest for this. Some guests might choose to be out during the cleaning, some might prefer to be there if they are worried about you messing with their belongings.

The only thing, and it's a big one, that makes this plan perhaps not doable presently, is the danger of spreading or contracting COVID.  Since indoor transmission is the main threat, sharing breathing space with anyone outside your own bubble is really not worth the risk, unless you, your cleaners, and the guests are fully vaccinated.