Guilt

[Pat271]

I’m a pretty happy even-tempered person, but today I am sad.

After a lot of soul-searching, I left a bad review for a guest.

Although guests occasionally slip up on the house rules, and I’m usually pretty lenient, this family broke almost every house rule I had. I felt I owed it to other hosts to not recommend them.

The Mom was communicative and cordial, so it was a tough decision. I did briefly consider leaving her a private review, but felt that would be a disservice to other hosts. We have a LOT of increasingly bad guest behavior in this industry recently, so it’s important that we are forthright, both as a service to other hosts, and so that guests can learn.

The soul-crusher is that the guest left me 5 stars, with a personal note saying what a fabulous time she and her family had. 😢 Now I feel certain that I’ve spoiled their otherwise-perfect vacation. Not to mention set them up for headaches in the future when they try to book.

This is a good example of why reviews are blind. It would be so tempting to remove my review in this case. Reviewing blindly keeps the reviews honest.

[Pat271]

@Robin4  Thanks for your feedback, Rob.

It’s somewhat of a balancing act to decide what transgressions, if any, to include in a review. When I am reading reviews myself to evaluate whether to accept a guest, I would rather get a basic sense of the behaviors, so that I don’t feel the need to contact the guest or host to get further details.

There were many more issues with this particular guest (a kitchen that took 3 hours to clean for which I was charged extra, a refrigerator full of food, stains on almost every bedsheet, annoyance when my maid knocked on the door after checkout time). Listing everything would have been the sign of a prickly host, as you said. However, I didn’t feel prickly listing the sneaking in of additional people, or starting breakfast at checkout time.

Thanks again, Robin, always appreciate your input.

-Pat

[Kelly149]

Goodness, I’d much rather know that a guest was snippy when they’re the ones late and that they left a huge mess. Those are more indicative of a bad guest than an extra person and a pillowcase. IMO. 

[Robin4]

@Pat271 

Pat, I have accepted some things that have happened here that other hosts would make a federal issue out of. But, I realise the game I am in and there is an element of risk involved when we charge a fee to have strangers come onto our properties.

I have had the medicine cupboard cleaned out.....$80 worth of first aid things just vanish.

I have had an expensive handmade lampshade and base knocked over and broken.

I have even had cutlery stolen from the cutlery draw, a $40 nonstick frypan scored to the point of being nonstick, a timber counter-top used as a cutting board.

Welcome to the world of hosting!

Pat these things are going to happen, and we are being totally naive if we think the guest is going to put their hand in their wallet and reimburse us. Some guests do.....but most don't.

My point is, making an issue of it is not going to make it better.....I have to do that. I allow in my listing amount for these things to happen, it doesn't happen often, but when it does, I just put things right and get on with business. In most of these cases I still end up with a great review because I have let them get through the review window without challenging them. Pat, I am the winner, every guest pays for the indiscretions of a few. Most of these indiscretions are accidents and on the odd occasion they are not I will just say in the review 'all the best but, you are not welcome again!'

Here in Australia we have handled Covid-19 pretty well! As soon as a case shows up in the community we go into lock-down. We currently have a total of 32 new community transmission cases but, 11 million Australians are in lock-down. These lock-downs can come with 90 minutes notice..... @Cathie19 will back me up on that, she has just been through it!

Because of this strategy we stamp out Covid 'spot-fires' quickly.....but the downside of this is, it is almost impossible to make travel plans! None of us know what is going to happen from one week to the next. 

I have in the past week had 5 cancellations due to Covid travel restrictions. But as quickly as someone has to cancel, the dates become available and someone else books. They do this because of my reviews....I do everything possible to protect my review base because Pat, that is money in the bank!

I do my duty, but first and foremost I protect my future business. 49 of my last 50 reviews have been 5 star and the only one that wasn't was a 4 star from a guest who said everything was great. I don't hassle people or Airbnb and the business just keeps coming!

Our first duty Pat, is to ourselves.

Cheers........Rob

[Debbi13]

I left a poor review and the guest left me 5 stars. We had such a challenging time when they were here I anticipated a bad review. Just constant questions and issues. 

I hate leaving reviews.  What pushed me over the brink was all the firecracker residue I found all over the farm property including in an old log shed. Now I include in my rules No fireworks. We were on a burn ban when they were here on top of everything.  So I would not want to host a guest like that again and have warned others.