How to review this guest - advice welcome !

[Michelle53]

Hi all

Some of you may recall the "heat seeker" guest I've had who found my A/C at 73 degrees too cold for him.

I'm going to make a short story long, and ask you how you'd review this guest. 

Up front, let me admit I didn't screen him - he has 30 x 5* reviews, perfect 5.0 rating, and wanted to book for a week, and his opening message was very nice and friendly. I was out when the request came in, so I accepted via the app, without any of my usual questions, but at the end of my acceptance message I asked him to let me know if he had any questions. No response. 

Fast forward several weeks, and I sent the entry instructions, which include checkout instructions. 

About 24 hours later, I got "ok, thanks. Seems easy enough". 

I realized I didn't ask him if he was driving, so I could leave out parking passes.  I asked the question. No response till 10.30pm arrival night when he said  "No car. Almost there. By the way, am I the only person staying there?"

This is where I started to worry, since now it's looking like he didn't read the listing.   But, ok, he's had glowing reviews.  I respond, and explain he is the only guest, but, of course, I am here. 

He gets in without incident,  says place is great, but can't access wifi. My fault, because I didn't reset the wifi code.  I fix that right away.   Then he asks if, next day, I can explain to him how to adjust the A/C.  Now I know he hasn't read the listing, because I explain there that the thermostat is on the first floor. I know people never really read that far.  I respond right away, explaining the thermostat is on the first floor, and asking if he is too hot or too cold ? 

No response until next morning, when he says the wifi works, but is very slow, at which point I tell him the provider is working in the area, and hopefully service will be less spotty. He asks if it is possible to raise the temperature 5 - 6 degrees.  I explain I will do my best, but that the A/C has to take care of the whole house, it's an older house, and heating/cooling can be uneven, it's over 90 degrees outside, and very warm on my second floor. But I tell him I will make an adjustment, and he should let me know if that's ok. 

Not another word after that.   I decide not to poke the nest any more, since it already feels like bad review anyway, and I'm certain he will let me know if something else is wrong. 

Fast forward to checkout. 

My checkout instructions ask to bag up trash and leave it outside the door, wash up dishes and put towels in the basket, and shoot me a quick note to say the guest is on their way. 

I come in to find towels on the floor, a whole week of trash stuffed in the bin, recycling containers overflowing, one of my two sinks stopped up with dried lettuce, and some unwashed items. 

All this would seem not unusual for a weeks stay, but a guest with 30 x 5* glowing reviews ?   Plus I am cranky because I've struggling with my place being too hot for a whole week, so he could be reasonably comfortable. Sure, I survived with opening windows and putting ceiling fans on - I'm not that fragile. No thanks for that, though.   Yes, I probably need to cool off in more ways than one !    My ring doorbell shows he departed at around 5.30am, without a word.  (A/c went back on one minute later)

What would you do ?   I know I should wait to see if he drops a review, and take a few days to gather my thoughts. 

[Sarah977]

@Michelle53  I might write something like: "I had no hesitancy in accepting this guest's booking without the questions I normally ask guests before accepting, due to his many 5* reviews. However, I was unpleasantly surprised to find out upon his arrival that it was apparent that he hadn't read my listing information at all. This led to some unreasonable expectations and demands during his stay. Check-out instructions were completely ignored, and the unit was left in a dirty and disarrayed state. While past hosts apparently had no issues with this guest, my experience with him was such that I unfortunately cannot recommend him as a respectful guest."

[Michelle53]

@Sarah977  Thank you !    That's more or less what I have in my head, at the moment. I am going to wait until the last moment, though, to review. 

[Michelle53]

@Sarah977  Hmmm.... he just wrote me a review..... his reviews for other hosts seem friendly enough, although he doesn't write a review every time - I think I may still wait a few more days. 

[Sarah977]

@Michelle53  So much for you waiting til the last minute 🙂

[Michelle53]

@Sarah977  Yeah. I'm just trying to evaluate what trip requests are likely to come in, in the next two weeks.  Since my calendar is basically full until September, it might be the better strategy to get this out of the way sooner, rather than later. 

Btw: I can see guest star ratings in the reservation info.   That's new. I can't recall if I was able to see those in the trip requests - but I believe so. I don't have IB.

[Lisa723]

@Michelle53 @Sarah977  hm, I don't think this guest was in the wrong to ask about the slow wi-fi and adjusting the temperature.  Slow wi-fi and feeling chilled are both significant inconveniences; asking about these issues is a far cry from "unreasonable expectations and demands." And if you did not message him the day before check-out with your check-out requests the only thing he is really guilty of is failing to read carefully, which as you say yourself is pretty much the norm. To me this seems like more of a bad fit for your listing than a bad guest. My review would say "X was a quiet guest, who seemed not to have read all of our listing details and check-out requests, but was otherwise respectful of our property" and leave fewer than five stars for cleanliness and communication.

[Michelle53]

@Lisa723  Thanks for your input !   This is mainly why I wanted to wait on writing my review - the "cool down period".    Slightly more measured in the language, but marking down on cleanliness and communication. 

But I do mention wifi in my listing as being slow, and spotty at times. Usually I'm careful to mention that up front, pre-acceptance, if anyone shows any indication of possibly wanting to work, especially for longer stays. Not in this case, though. 

The checkout instructions are two lines right under the wifi password in my check-in message. They'd be hard to miss. 

[Lisa723]

@Michelle53 I think we can agree that this guest was a poor reader. And that if you'd done your normal screening you may have mutually concluded it was a poor fit.

Frankly, I could be guilty of missing/forgetting the check-out instructions too if the only place I saw them was in the check-in message a week earlier. 

[Michelle53]

@Lisa723  Putting check out info with my entry instructions is somewhat new. The last couple of guests got it, but it's not enough data to draw any conclusions.  If enough folks don't get it, I will relocate that.

[Sarah977]

@Lisa723  I agree that comfortable temperature is totally subjective (I'm one of those people who's always colder than everyone else, myself) and that we shouldn't resent a guest wanting to be comfortable. 

But Michelle did say that she mentioned to the guest how hot it gets for her upstairs if the temp is turned up higher (and it was 90 degrees out!), so that's why the heating issue strikes me as unreasonable. If a host let me know that raising the temperature would make her quite uncomfortable in her living space, I would tell her not to bother, then, I'll just put on more clothes. But he didn't seem to care that she would swelter.

@Michelle53  You should have switched floors with him! 🙂

[Michelle53]

@Sarah977  I thought about that,  but then he would have had to sleep with the cats 🐈

[Inna22]

I have similar expectations in terms of check out and someone following my instructions is a pleasant surprise rather than a norm. As I have said in another thread, we all need to “relax our severe”. He asked questions, what’s wrong with that? So he double checked if he would be the only one there- what’s the big deal? So he took longer to reply or didn’t always write back. Perhaps because of your slow WiFi it took him too long to load the app and he moved on. I think you are being petty and if the tables were reversed and the guest lowered your stars for similar offenses you would have been upset. 
I let these things go but I also expect the guests to let some things go in return. 
Having said that, we all have different hosting styles and I respect yours. I am only saying this because you asked. In general I think this is why some people do not want to rent an airbnb. Too much to worry about compare to a hotel. 

[Kitty-and-Creek0]

@Inna22 

Being an Airbnb guest is definitely more complicated than staying in a hotel. I think it takes a special person to be a guest of ours, and appreciate that. They are trusting us with their experience, safety, comfort, goals. That is pretty special, imho! I always have preferred home stays, for all my many years of travel. As a guest, I feel responsible to take proper care of my host's home and things, to fit in with their culture. When I've been in a whole home rental, that is even more of a responsibility as a guest. In short, our guests are special folk, and as hosts, we take on a lot when we accept them into our homes. It is a 2 way street, and it is pretty awesome!

[Michelle53]

@Inna22    A few things.   

The guest booked on March 13th for June 4th. That's quite an extensive amount of time to ask all the questions he might have.  Generally, I'm already asleep by 10pm, so when the first question comes in at 10.30pm when the guest is already on his way over in the ride share, it's fortunate that I was, in fact, awake and online to answer. 

Also, that I was able to deal with his first issue (logging in) right away, after check-in.

His temperature issue wasn't clear to me at first - I didn't know if he was too hot or too cold.  I asked that follow-up question right away, but didn't get a response till the next morning.   If one has a cell phone and wifi is not working, or slow, obviously one can use the cellular network to communicate. 

Next day he asked if I could raise the temperature 5 - 6 degrees. I said I'd do what I could, and did raise the temperature several degrees.    I asked him for a follow-up to let me know if he was ok, and got nothing back at all. 

So you ask if the tables were turned, how would I feel ?

I might have raised the same issues with my host, if it were me. But if the host did their best to accommodate me, I might have responded courteously with a "Thank you for trying to help", instead of not bothering to respond at all. 

Being a somewhat task-oriented person, myself, with a better-than-average memory, I would personally have remembered the check-out instructions a week later. 

But I realize everyone is not the same.  I think it's reasonable to expect common courtesy, though, which I don't feel I received, in this case.