Guest review? Leave 5 stars on none?

Douglas353
Level 5
Orinda, CA

Guest review? Leave 5 stars on none?

Just had a guest leave who left the place extras messy.  Food crumbs on the kitchen, living room, and bedroom floors and in the couch.  Then in the kitchen it looks like the dropped a container of yogurt, spat on the floor.  (No attempt to clean it up.)  The somehow caused small stains on the towels, sheets and pillow case.  It took an extra hour and a half to clear for the next guest. 


Fellow hosters, would you leave 5 stars for this guest and a nice review?
Not give any review/zero star review?

Or give somewhere between 1 and 4 stars saying the guest left the place a mess? 

 

 

27 Replies 27

@Douglas353 the more you read this forum, the more you realize that reviews are all over the place on both sides of the stay experience. That is why its essential to adopt your own scale.  Some hosts never leave bad reviews, others code the language, others are much more to the point and direct. There is zero consistency. As a host or a guest you have to create guidelines that make sense for you.  Check out this thread for some insights into this topic. 

 

https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/The-coded-language-of-a-review/m-p/1137884#M276099

 

As on your previous thread, you seem to be asking for ABB to be a different beast than they actually are. They won't clarify or make consistent what reviewing should be like. They won't remove poor reviews that are clearly retaliatory. They won't help you with this or make others adopt the same rating system. They won't penalize people for abusing the rating system.  Again, they are not a business partner. Think of this platform as an advertising venue ONLY.  Once you start to frame that in your mind ("I advertise my space on the ABB website" instead of "I host my place on ABB and they are a partner in my business") you will have a much better idea of how to approach all interactions. Good luck!

 

@Douglas353  I have told this story often.

 

I have a place in New Orleans that I use for only family and friends. During one stay post hurricane last year I was covered in bites. Immediately I thought "bedbugs!" though all my furnishings are less than a year old and I have limited guests. I called a pest control pro in a panic.

 

Turns out it was bugs outside as the city returned to normal from the hurricane. Grass was overgrown and trash still not collected. The moral of the story is that not all bugs are bedbugs and even the most terrible bites are not necessarily attributable to an ABB. Guests are too quick to call out the bedbug alarm-- even I was paranoid enough to say that about my own property. And if no one reported it ever, chances are it was not an infestation but something that a guest got bitten by elsewhere.

@Laura2592   The reason guests are quick to call the bedbug alarm is because of how quickly there population can increase.   All bedbug infestations are the result of just one, yes one bedbug will produce millions of offspring in a short amount of time.  But you are right, bedbugs are not the only insect which bites guests.  There are fleas, flies, ticks, mosquitoes  and spiders which all bite people.  We accepted an emergency stay from a guest who spent one night at another property and in the morning she had bug bites on her both of her legs and on her back.  I can't remember if it was fleas or bedbugs and it doesn't really matter.  As a responsible Airbnb host I agreed to host the women provided all of her luggage, clothing and personal items were either thoroughly vacuumed or discarded.

 

Bedbugs and fleas can live for over two years between human meals.  Once feed that single insect can produce offspring in the millions.  I agree with you not bites are from bedbugs or insects in the property.  But to a guest, does it matter if they have hundreds of bites?  I don't think so.

 

Out of curiosity what did you do to rid your property of the insect issue?  

 

 

 

 

 

@Douglas353  Laura's property didn't have an insect issue. She said the bugs were outside, not inside.

@Laura2592 this is such a great system, I wish Airbnb would adopt something like this! I came here looking for insight on to leaving a review for a guest who was nice enough, but for a 3 night stay he went into our storage bins under the bed and removed another set of towels without even asking me. We only found out about it after check-out when the cleaning service told us about it. Of course it's not the worst thing in the world and I hate to give the guest the gears when it's not the end of the world but at the same time isn't that what being able to get in touch with me 24/7 is about? if the 4 full-sized towels for 4 guests wasn't enough for 3 nights, give me a shout before you help yourself... is it worthy of a star reduction?

@Ashley1281  The bins were under the guest bed? If so, unless you have specific instructions that guests are not to touch the bins, I don't see that the guest did anything wrong. If there are things left in the guest space, you can reasonably assume that guests will access it. 

 

And 4 towels for 4 guests for three nights seems chintzy. My guests get 2 bath towels, a hand towel and a washcloth for a week. If one of the bath towels is still wet, they have a dry one, and women with long hair usually wrap one towel around their body and one around their hair.

 

If a host marked down for this, unless the guests were made aware the bins were off-limits, I would consider the host to be incredibly petty.

 

And I would consider a guest who contacted me about more towels, when they were able to self-sufficiently locate some on their own, to be someone who required hand-holding. 

 

Anything you don't want guests to look in or help themselves to in an entire house listing should be locked up or stored elsewhere.

Ashley1281
Level 2
North Vancouver, Canada

@Sarah977 thanks for the insight! 

 

@Ashley1281 I might ding him in communication if there were other things that seemed off. For one incident that could be a perfect misunderstanding I would probably give him a pass. If it seemed like he helped himself to other items he should have asked about or had any other issues I would likely lower his score. Remember guests can't see this star score. 

 

If this was the only problem I would probably mention it in private feedback. if he seemed to take advantage in other ways I would say something in the forward facing review like "So and so was pleasant. Had a few issues communicating his needs which resulted in helping himself to some locked items. Left our space clean. Overall a decent guest."

 

As many hosts will tell you if its not nailed down or totally invisible in your space, guests will use it. So maybe re-think where you hide your extra towels. We take ours home and rotate them out after each guest.

Thanks @Laura2592!! Makes total sense!

Ashley1281 If this is your only issue I would leave 5 stars and not even mention it.  Flip the situation....  If you were a guest and needed another towel during a stay you would look for one.   Would you look in cabinets and in bins?  If you  found a bin wouldn't you open it?  If you found a towel, wouldn't you use it?   If the host left the bin there with a towels in it they were left for you to use....  right?  Why else would the host leave the towels? 

 

Give your guest 5 stars, they did nothing wrong.  Remove the bin if you don't want your guests to use them. 

Emilia42
Level 10
Orono, ME

Why would I leave a dishonest review?

Leaving a starless review is impossible. You have to select stars for all categories in order to submit the review. 

 

Had these been my guests:

 

"XX was a good communicator and house rules were followed (if true.) Extra cleaning was required, surpassing the allotted $100 cleaning fee, especially in the kitchen." 

 

Cleanliness: 2 stars

House rules: 4 stars

Communication: 4 stars

 

Douglas353
Level 5
Orinda, CA

I NEVER said I was going to leave a dishonest review. 

Oh, sorry, I read "Fellow hosters, would you leave 5 stars for this guest and a nice review?" 

A "nice review" for this type of guest is pretty dishonest.

My misunderstanding.

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