Leaving bad review

[Maggie465]

So we are fairly new with Air bnb. We recently had someone stay in our cabin rental. 4 guys in the early 20’s. They only stayed for one night, but left the place a mess, the door to the cabin was not fully shut, microwave left open, lights left on, did not follow the house rules,  left pee in the toilet. Decorative pillows all over the floor. 
My husband and I know about the window time frame and all of that.

my husband is more nervous that they will bad mouth our establishment on Facebook or some other social media app.

I really feel like I should leave an honest review and I would never host them again.

would love to hear everyone’s thoughts on this.  Is there a way to block someone from booking with you again? Will me saying no I would never host them again be enough? 

thank you in advance! 

[Emilia42]

Hi @Maggie465, I used to live in Saranac Lake. You're lucky to be there.

When you write a review and you click "would not host again," this prevents the guest from instant booking with you again. Their second booking, if there will ever be one, will come through as a request and you will have a chance to decline it. (This scenario just happened to me.) You can write an honest review without bashing the guest. Something like "XX and his friends stayed for one night. Communication was good. Extra cleaning was needed and check-out instructions were overlooked." Then give low star ratings on cleanliness and house rules.

[Sarah977]

@Maggie465  My understanding is that if you say you wouldn't host them again, they will be blocked from booking with you again.

As for the review, we live in the age of social media. If you are going to shy away from leaving honest reviews because of what a guest might post on Facebook, you would be doing other hosts a grave disservice. You can't live in fear of some bad review.

That said, what you describe, as far as the mess sounds to me like what I would expect from a group of 20 year old guys. Leaving the microwave door open sounds like a total non-issue to me.

You don't say what house rules they broke, but just leave a brief honest review, saying they disrespected house rules, cleaning required more time than normal, and didn't fully shut the cabin door when they left.

And be aware that hosts who don't use Instant Book are not privy to guest star ratings, so please don't be one of those hosts who leaves low star ratings but a generic nice written review, because that misleads non-IB hosts.

[Anonymous]

@Maggie465   Are your bookings mostly coming from Facebook, or from Airbnb? I ask because anyone can badmouth you on social media for any reason, you can't do much about that, but that shouldn't have any direct impact on your property's appeal on a booking platform. There's no straightforward way for someone looking at your listing to check what some random douchebag had to say about it on F*c*book.

In short, this would be a terrible reason to chicken out on leaving an honest review. What I would suggest to your husband is that a review doesn't have to fit the good/bad binary - you can simply lay out the facts of your experience, professionally and unemotionally, and let your peers make an informed decision based on that. And if these guys still go on to post some rude comments on social media, so what? They don't seem like the kind of people who have many friends anyway, so it would be an incredible coincidence if their remarks cost you an irreplaceable booking.