How low is too low to review a guest?

[Kelly149]

Dear all, please offer your opinions on a tricky subject I'm currently mulling over.

I have multiple listings on multiple platforms. I'm struggling with how to review various guests. (my inclination is typically to be fairly black/white and harsh, but I also don't want to deal with the BS that comes from people being pissed when they find out they've been reviewed badly....)

In one of my listings we do not share space with the guests (separate entrances) but there are shared walls. Guests are very aware that we're all in one house though in separate sides. So, for example if in that listing I can hear the guests constantly screaming obscenities at each other or I know that they arrived and were flaming angry that they read the listing wrong and it wasn't what they imagined it to be (they did manage to clean up their language/thoughts before speaking to me). Would that color your review?

If you have a very clear policy that extra guests are not allowed, but then there are extra guests brought. Does that then drop them in their overall rating to a 4, 3, 2 or 1? 

What does it take for you to make someone a Thumbs Down or a 4, 3, 2 or 1 overall rating?

Are you concerned for what it means for you (your listing) to mark guests badly? Are you at all concerned that guests may see the stars you've left them? Other thoughts on badly reviewed guests? Good riddance or someday we'll all be in trouble for having expectations for how guests should treat our homes??

[Mark116]

I've given more 'thumbs down' than I have very low star reviews, most of the time it has only been a 4 for following rules or cleanliness, we gave our first 1 star for cleanliness only a few weeks ago when a family left the kitchen full of food encrusted pots and pans, and that was only the start of the list, LOL.  I've also often just left the thumbs up/down blank, if I can't bring myself to give them a thumbs up but they weren't bad enough for thumbs down.

[Daniel1992]

Rate honestly.  The guests won't see their review until they review you, so you won't deal with the review until after the fact.

[Stephanie365]

You are not doing the rest of us any favors by not reviewing honestly. 

Now, I don't nitpick in my reviews. If a guest is overall respectful and quiet and communicates well, I'm not going to ding the little stuff.

For example, I ask people to put used towels in the hamper, but if they leave them hanging on the shower, I'm OK with that.  If they were to leave wet towels on furniture, then I'd remark on it in my review because wet towels on wood furniture = damaged furniture and it's rude. Leaving towels hanging in the shower is not rude.

If a guest is generally neat and respectful, they get a 5* review.

If they were neat and respectful, but they didn't communicate well, they get marked down on communication and a 4* review. Example would be the guy who showed up towing a boat that he was delivering to someone, which was the whole reason for him staying!  He never mentioned anything about a boat and I did not have parking arrangements for a boat. So, it took about 20 minutes of jockeying things around in my driveway... IN THE RAIN... to make room for the boat. That was rude and inconvenienced me as I really didn't want to be out in the rain doing this. So while he was a great guest otherwise, he got a 4* review overall and 3* for communication (he communicated everything else very well). He still got a thumbs up because that 20 minute inconvenience was annoying but overall he was a good guest.

Now the entitled pigs from South Carolina got slammed in my review.  They treated my home like a dive motel. Considering they were in my suite for a total of 20 hours, 16 of which they were sleeping, they generated more trash than I do in a week. And they left it everywhere. They spilled coffee and made ZERO attempt to clean it up. It ran across my counter top, in my cabinet drawers where my dish towels were, permanently staining them, and the coffee dripped into the lower cabinets and on the floor. They left half eaten food everywhere.  There was enough dropped food in my carpet to feed a pack of wild dogs. They didn't use the coasters I provided. They emptied the trash out of their car and piled in on the floor of my kitchen. They left a sink full of food to rot. The sink literally overflowed with dishes, glasses and food.  It was piled on the counter tops, too. They used every single plate and glass I had. They were absolute PIGS.  They got a 1* rating and a big fat thumbs down. 

They suicided themselves in their response to my review saying, "I should expect people to leave a mess".

[Allison2]

It sounds like we may have similar setups. I host a suite that’s in the upstairs of my home.

I’ve overheard a couple people trash talking, arguing, or “I didn’t know it would be like (thing clearly stated in the listing)”. With some guests I’ve talked with them and ironed out issues. With others I read them as being insufferably miserable people and avoided interacting with them during their stay. Either way I try to review as if I’d never overheard them.

I confirm their guest count before arrival and have a “no unregistered guests” house rule, so sneaking people in is probably the quickest way for a guest to piss me off and lose stars. I’ve only given 3 thumbs down in a couple hundred stays and two of them were for sneaking in guests. I think I gave them 2 stars in both house rules and communication. I just don’t think that level of deceit is compatible with staying in people’s homes.

There are plenty of little things I’ll overlook – I ask myself if it was accidental or if I could have made the same mistake. Probably the most common is some noise after quiet hours. I don’t sweat a little wear and tear, so they have to be pretty careless or disrespectful to lose points on cleanliness. If they were bad at responding in a timely manner or really blew their ETA they could lose a star in communication, but sometimes I just tell them in private feedback.

I’m cognizant that many of my guests come from word of mouth and lower rated guests probably won’t recommend me to their friends. I’m also not going to pull a punch if they really deserve a low star. If someone is an entitled jerk I probably don’t want them referring their jerk friends either! I’ll always have expectations for how guests treat my home. Right now it feels like <5% of guests can’t deal with them – and good riddance. When Airbnb gets to the point that catering to the worst guest is more important than one of their better hosts (SH 13x…in a row! 5.0 average) I’ll pack up my toys and play elsewhere.

The ones I have the hardest time reviewing are good guests who were cursed with bad family members. One lady came for a wedding with her husband and his sister and bro-in-law. The in-laws were a mess!

When they returned from the wedding the in-laws were DRUNK and the sister was LOUD. I heard them trying to get her to bed in the room above mine. She threw herself down on the bed and collapsed through the bed slats onto the floor (she was a bigger girl and it was an inexpensive frame). Drunken braying laughter ensued as they tried to pull her out of the hole and my reserving guest whisper shouted "SHUT UP!! You're going to get us kicked out of here!!!" LOL.

The trainwreck also smoked in the garden, using my tea mug as an ash tray. I had a chat with the reserving couple as they were leaving and she was MORTIFIED. I did mention the issues in private feedback but rated the guest on her own merit. She tried her best.

[Ian_Janice0]

Polite, no permanent damage and the place left reasonably clean is good for us to give a 5. Check in is through lock box so late arrivals are not a problem. We do not have shared space so it is much easier for us to feel comfortable. However, I do worry that this might not be enough info for those hosting shared space. We recently had on the road hoarders that came with everything. Hopefully they know their limitations and would not rent your room but if they did ??? What should we have said - I thought about - although our place was not large enough to accomodate all their belongings X and X were polite and followed the house rules.

In the text I include if they were low maintenance so the hosts will know that they did not require alot of assistance but exclude it if they texted quite a bit but were polite. We have had guests that we ran right over to help but realized they just needed to turn the coffee pot on. Would I mention this - no.

We only have had one thumbs down with a three for cleanliness and the generic - better suited to a hotel with full cleaning services - would this be enough to alert you. Great to hear everyones feedback.