Is anyone seeing lower stars from guests?

[Inna22]

I have been getting crushed by poor reviews. Guests are just not happy. Typical compliant is either something along the lines of "thin trash bags and toilet paper made me feel unwelcome" (both are from Costco) or there is a train behind the house, I could not sleep (yes, there is, mentioned in the listing and marked as potential for noise). The train did not bother 300 previous guests but now is mentioned by every other person (accompanied by a one or two star rating). It would be very convenient to say that people are just not happy these days and only strange people travel in groups and rent big houses downtown Chicago these days. However I do not want to be the person who always thinks "it is them, not me". Is anyone seeing a similar trend?

[Helen350]

This question was discussed only recently @Inna22 ! https://community.withairbnb.com/t5/Hosting/Worse-ratings-since-covid/m-p/1367809 

[Inna22]

@Helen350 thank you! Yes, identical issue. I feel a little better but would rather all of us had great reviews than had company to my misery 

[Pat271]

This may not apply to you, but one thing I’ve noticed is that one reviewer can start a trend. If the reviewer mentions how clean the place is, how spacious it is, how nice the host is, etc., the next 5 reviewers have a tendency to echo in the same vein, both in the text and in the ratings. Similarly, if one person mentions street noise (even though they know the place is in the middle of downtown), the next 5 people will also mention street noise. Even the tone of reviews are matched by subsequent reviewers. The reviews list back and forth gently, like waves. 

It must be human nature. Fundamentally, we are, in our most basic form, lemmings. 

[Kelly149]

@Pat271 Yes this! We talked about this ages ago when @Huma0 was getting good reviews & bad reviews for different rooms in same house. People are copy cats and also, yes, we’re all pretty grumpy right now. 

good luck @Inna22 , hopefully better folks headed your way soon!

[Huma0]

@Kelly149 

Yes, exactly. What is arguably my best (and most booked) room gets lower ratings than the other two, although not bad ratings. I am more likely to get a four star for that one, but that’s not an issue since I stopped hosting short term guests. 

What i found perplexing was was that the biggest disparity was in the location rating, which was around 10% lower even though it is the SAME location, especially given that this room faces gardens and the other two a busy road. There’s really no difference in price either.

 I concluded that my fanciest looking room attracted fussier guests and that people expected a fancy location to boot (of course not bothering to read the description or do their research) but I think that @Pat271 ’s explanation could definitely also be a factor.

[Inna22]

@Pat271 interesting observation. I can only hope for an awesome review for everyone to copy soon enough! 

[Helen3]

Hi @Inna22 

It’s always frustrating to hear when wonderful, experienced hosts like you are getting post Covid guests with unreasonable expectations.

I do wonder if this is something of a US thing ?

I’ve had lovely guests post lockdown - all five star reviews .  I am attracting the same sort of guests as before but just mainly UK based younger people. (Before I also got business traveller and parents visiting their children.) 

Is there anything you can do up front in your listing to highlight train noise ? The other complains sound trivial.

Hoping you get better guests soon. 

[Rory85]

@Inna22 I also have potential for noise in my house as well as I live 2 doors away from a wooden bridge over water.  It can often be very loud when people speed over it and the noise echos off the water.  I mention it in the listing very clearly and I say that we provide a yoga dohm sleep machine to help diffuse noise at night. I purchased it on Amazon for $20. So far, fingers crossed, I have not received any negative feedback about the bridge.  I probably just jinxed myself, but I hope not!! Good luck to you!

[Inna22]

@Rory85 I have not had an issue with this for three years. People look at it more than urban experience than anything else. Plus, you can only hear it in one bedroom so there are 4 more for light sleepers. Only recently it has become a problem for my guests.

[Inna22]

@Helen3 hopefully it is just a US thing and perhaps people will be happier now than election is over

[Anonymous]

@Inna22 Your most recent review has a lot more detail in the feedback than just the trash bags and toilet paper. The thing that immediately jumped out at me was that the guests were not a family but rather a "company retreat," so it sounds like some of your multi-bed dorm rooms were being shared by adult colleagues rather than close friends or relatives. Probably no big deal if the company was Cirque du Soleil, but for most professionals I can imagine the awkwardness of that sleeping arrangement would put everything else in a negative light. 

I get the impression that up to a certain guest count, your unit feels like a luxury home, and beyond it it's something more akin to a youth hostel. Of course the context of a pandemic adds an extra layer of complication to people staying in close quarters like this (really, it's unconscionable that an employer would subject their staffers to that arrangement, but it's not your fault as the host).

What's up with the garden gnome and bathroom figurines that the guest found offensive? Those aren't visible in your photos, but without a cautious Host Response it would be easy for a prospective guest to conclude that you're a creepy racist.

[Inna22]

@Anonymous I was floored when I found out it was a company retreat. Floored. The stupidity, level of irresponsibility, I do not have enough words in my English vocabulary to describe what I think. The position they put their employees in and their families!  I know some companies bunk employees during conferences which I find odd, but not during pandemic! She also said I had too much furniture. I am always worried people would say it is too bare. Of course it is in the way when you try to social distance 15 people in a living room for a company gathering!

Now to figurings. I was going to make a separate post about this with pictures. I will try to still post it at some point this weeks. I inherited a few fun pieces of art from the previous owner when I bought the house. There were a number of different garden statues/vases and I scattered them throughout the yard. I guess one of them looked like a black man? They are all grey clay. I am just going to throw that one out. Not even going to risk offending anyone. Those inside the house were bought by my grandfather in Africa. He was a doctor on an ice breaking boat and brought all sorts of incredible souvenirs (I actually have a mammoth tusk!). These are from the 50s but more of a street bought type so fun but not really valuable. There are black man among them but I did not think it would be offensive, did not even cross my mind. I have hosted many african americans and many have rebooked with me. This woman is Asian. I certainly do not want offend anyone and have no attachment to them. Just puzzled by the reaction

[Anonymous]

@Inna22  If you're traveling in America while actually black, and the most offensive thing you encounter is a figurine, you've had a pretty good day - so it's not surprising that the first person who commented was busy getting all offended on someone else's behalf. 

I'm not a fan of figurines and knickknacks in general, though, and especially not in space rented to guests, where they're just more things to be potentially broken or lost. Statues and statuettes are all fundamentally symbols, so I can see how they take on unintended layers of meaning as they're moved from one context to another. As a guest, there have definitely been times when I've found some of the stuff in an Airbnb to be pretty sociopolitically brazen to put on display, but I've always seen it as a normal part of staying in a real person's home as opposed to a generic hotel. 

[Clare167]

Out of the seven stays I hosted this summer, there were 4 which caused me some concern, in different ways. Two of those gave 4 star reviews, whereas in my previous history of over 50 stays I had only had a total of two 4 stars. I felt there were a couple of reasons for the poor review ratings (1) I required longer stays, 4 days or more, which gives time to feel that the place could suit them better if only ...  (2) stopping (as a hygiene precaution) the provision of a little gift such as cookies, and free tea bags, breakfast cereal, etc had a real impact,  guests appreciate such things out of all proportion to their cost. The emotional impact of the lower ratings, together with the exhausting extra cleaning, plus consciousness of health risks to me, really tipped the scales to the negative side.