Received a negative response to a positive review

[Stefania615]

Hi, I think it’s not common what has happened to me. I stayed one month at an apartment and even though there have been some negative aspects overall we stayed fine and I thought that we had fantastic hosts. So I left them a 5 star review with lots of info for next guests as I wanted to help them. They haven’t had any reviews till now. 

Completely unespectadly I received a bad response from the host. Can you believe it? 

They accused us to have left the house dirty because we had children. This is completely unfair and not true. Now I feel stupid and really offended by this. 

What can I do? 

[Sarah977]

@Stefania615   Don't worry about it- the host's response to your review actually appears on her review page rather than yours. She seems to be a new host and doesn't understand that her response just makes her look bad, rather than you. Experienced hosts usually know never to leave any sort of negative response to a positive review.  A host's response should either be used simply to thank the guest for staying, to thank them for their feedback if the guest mentions some suggestion that the host can learn something from (like "It would have been nice to have a brighter light bulb in the bedside reading lamp"), or to correct any misleading information the guest may have written in their review, for the benefit of future guests.

She did say you were a lovely family, but apparently she expected you to dispose of the trash. If she hadn't left any specific instructions about what to do with the trash before check-out, she has no reason to complain. If she did, and you didn't follow instructions, then make sure to do so at the next place you stay. Even if you aren't instructed what to do with the garbage, always make sure to at least tie the garbage bag up tight so whatever is in there doesn't stink up the place. That's especially important now with the COVID precautions hosts are taking, because the host may leave at least 24 hours before going in to clean in order to keep themselves or their cleaners safe.

BTW, she didn't say you left the house dirty- she said you left it in disarray, which is not the same thing. Some hosts are fussier than others in terms of how much tidying and cleaning they expect. When in doubt, ask. And what a guest considers clean and tidy may of course differ from what the host does.

[Stefania615]

I agree, her response seems weird but i’m worried future hosts may not be happy to have me as a guest and I feel what she said is completely untrue.

The instruction about garbage was to respect collection schedule and we did it. We cleaned the sofa covers and tried to tidy up. However, I found the fridge dirty and I fell into a hole at the end of the stairs. But I decided to left a nice review and this is how she thanked me. I was really sad reading that. My husband and I use Airbnb very often and this never happened to us. 

[Sarah977]

@Stefania615  Her very short review of you doesn't seem to me that it will particularly hurt your chances of being accepted elsewhere- she did say you were a lovely family and you have another good review (You say you've had lots of Airbnb stays- did the other hosts not bother to review, or were those booked under your husband's account?).

You could have done better with your response to her review, though. Just as host responses to guest reviews should simply be factual, as they are for the benefit of future guests, so should your responses be, as well, as they are read by future hosts. So rather than say "Ma'am..." and then defend yourself and mention negative things, it would have  been better to just state the facts "During our month long stay, we always put the garbage out on designated pick-up days, but our check-out day didn't coincide with those days. Instruction on what to do about that wasn't provided, but next time we stay somewhere we will make sure to ask."

This makes it clear what happened and that you are willing to learn from the experience so future hosts aren't wary. The complaints about the dirty fridge and the hole at the bottom of the stairs shouldn't have been mentioned in a response, as they don't relate to her review of you, and you didn't mention them in your review of your stay.

Don't regret the review you left- you took the high road and didn't nitpick about the few things that weren't up to snuff. Future hosts often look at the reviews guests leave for their previous hosts to make sure the guests aren't serial complainers, so the nice review you left works in your favor.

One thing- you say you "tried to tidy up". There really isn't such a thing as trying to tidy up- you either tidy up or you don't. I can understand that with a month long stay and children, thing get moved around, maybe for your own convenience, maybe you moved things out of the kids' reach that you didn't want them to mess with or break. It always takes longer to get anything done with kids around (I raised 3), so try to leave yourself enough time in the future to put things back where they were when you moved in, if that didn't happen this time (Of course I have no idea if it was actually in what I'd consider disarray, or the host was just quite fussy and unreasonable- there's always 2 sides to a story).

[Ann72]

@Stefania615  I hate that.  You can actually have your review of her removed, since you wrote it.  Just ask Airbnb take it off the site.  You can't have someone else's review of you removed, but having yours removed might feel good.

[Stefania615]

@Ann72  Thank you for your support. Yes, I have asked to remove my review but I didn’t get any reply from Airbnb. 

[Stefania615]

@Sarah977 some host didn’t left me a review because I didn’t left them one probably but most of reservations were done by my husband. Yes, I agree with you my response was poor but I wrote it too quickly and I was really upset. I should have waited to get calmer. I also didn’t know it was my last chance to publicly respond. Now I know. However, before leaving the house my husband asked her to check if everything was fine. She said that it was not necessary and let us go. I wrote my review with my heart. I expected a thank you. In fact, what really offended me was the repIy to my positive review not the review she gave me. I have learned that I never ever should write a review based on emotions, positive or negative. I will always write a review based on facts in the feature. Thank you for your feedback Sarah and for spending the time to read the review and help me to understand where I was doing wrong.