Offensive and ill mannered guest

[Sylvia56]

Hello host community!

My name is Sylvia and have been hosting for a year and a half.

I just had a terrible experience with a incredibly offensive and ill mannered guest.  I could sense that this was not going to be en easy guest just by the lack of a simple greeting when she made the reservation, but I accepted anyway.  Mother and teenage son were only at my home two nights.

1) I had to send her two messages to see what their arrival time would be?

2) The following day I wake up to a lot of drama between the two, because her 15 yr. old did not want to go out with her but, do his own thing with friends.  She phones home and is carrying on about the matter in my front yard.  I could see my neighbors listening in to her phone drama.

3) I buy her organic berries and serve her a nice breakfast twice, and I don't get simple "thank you".

**4) At check out time, she asks if they could leave their bags for a few hours. I say, "yes". While they were out, I got a message from her private line( not through Airbnb) telling me that her son had lost his wallet AND basically accusing me of stealing it! I calmly answered, and told her I would look for it, and that they were welcome to look for it as well. She said "thank you" ! :). I had to run errands and wasn't home when they picked up their bags.

 My dilema is what kind of review do I write?  Is it okay to write: Ill mannered and extremely offensive guest. AND add that she accused me of stealing, or don't include the reason why she was offensive?  I don't want to add drama to a woman that feeds on drama.  But I do want to make other host aware.  Please advise, thanks!

[Matthew285]

@Sylvia56 I'm sorry to had to deal with this unpleasant person.

You have property identified your 2 goals (which are sometimes at odds with each other)

1. Warn future hosts about this guest.
2. Avoid further drama with this guest.

It is a very fine line to walk. A good way in general to approach host reviews is to make them professional in tone, strictly factual, and short. The model to follow is like a newspaper story: limit it to facts you can verify and keep the tone neutral.

A review for a guest like your guest might sound something like this:

"Communication with this guest was somewhat difficult for me, and our personal interactions were not as warm and pleasant as they have been with previous guests. As the stay progressed, I found myself looking forward less and less to dealing with her. I would not choose to host her again."

How you felt about dealing with her should not be up to debate: they are your personal impressions and feelings. And while a guest can argue about being called "offensive and ill mannered", it is another thing to try to refute a host's claim that they did not enjoy your company.

And having a host say that they did not enjoy dealing with a guest should be all the warning future hosts need.

[Sarah977]

@Matthew285   The non-personal, factual, "I" statements you talk about are actually really good life skills in other areas of life and relationships as well. As I became a more experienced parent (I have 3, all grown now), took some parenting courses and did some reading, I started saying things like "It's really disappointing and difficult for me when I come home after shopping for our dinner and needing to get started cooking, to find that the kitchen chores haven't been done", which resulted in a much more appropriate response (Oh sorry, Mom, I forgot, I'll wash the dishes right now) than me saying " You're so irresponsible, you can't even be trusted to do the one chore you're expected to do, what were you doing all afternoon, talking to your friends on the phone? ", which of course got a defensive response and tended to lead to a fight.

Even positive things I talked about in "I" statements. "It makes me so happy to open your door and see such a clean and tidy room, what a treat" rather than "Oh, you're such a good girl" because, really, my thinking she's a good girl wasn't and shouldn't be based on whether she cleaned her room or not, but on who she is as a person. They still felt proud of themselves to know that their work was noticed and appreciated, it didn't need to be somehow tied to my feelings towards them.

[Matthew285]

@Sarah977 that is interesting stuff!

I have 3 kids (all teenagers now), and you are right: that seems like a very constructive way to communicate with them.

Funny story: when I first heard the term "I" Messages, I thought the person was saying "Eye Messages", so I figured we were supposed to work on communicating via knowing glances or pointed eye-brow raises, or something like that.

"Eye Messsages" are not an effective technique. (Well, maybe in a "meeting in a bar" situation, but not for raising children.)

[Sarah977]

@Matthew285  That is really funny! I can just imagine my kids saying, "Mom, why are you doing that weird thing with your eyes, it looks so retarded".

I'd say the challenges of dealing with teenagers is really good prep for hosting 🙂

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

@Sylvia56

I agree with @Matthew285 that for your review of the guest, it's best to keep your emotions in check. If it were me in your shoes, I'd definitely include statements like "Communication with the guest was difficult and challenging. Actions and manner of speech of guest made me uncomfortable in my own home. Based on my personal interaction with this guest, I would not recommend for a shared home situation."

FYI, this is an actual review I wrote a while back for a guest "While we appreciate that most house rules were respected, the guest needed occasional reminders about common sense/basic courtesy and we were a bit disappointed that our comments or requests were accepted with a smile & apology but then mostly disregarded. Would not recommend for a shared house situation."

Of course, I had to really hold back because I wanted to rant about how he would do teeny tiny loads of laundry (usually about 7~8 items) 3~4 times a week at full load setting, all the crumbs and drops of pepsi he left all over the kitchen counter and floor, how he kept taking our guest towels to the gym (despite the fact we asked him not to) and bring them back stinky and totally disgusting, how he used the drying rack in the main room as his personal clothes hanger, how he would snoop through our personal drawers & cabinets when he thought we weren't home, how he would leave all the lights on (in the the common areas and guest room & bath) before leaving home in the morning, how he would suggest we "share" food for dinner together but come empty handed, sit at the table expecting to be served like a guest, then after eating his share just thank us for the meal and leave the clean up to us and a bunch of other passive-agressive things where the only reason for those actions we could think of was only to annoy us.

[Sylvia56]

Thank you for your advice. My real concern is that she basically accused me of taking her son’s wallet, and what kind of review she will write. I will make Airbnb aware of her comments. 

Thank you again. 

[Sandra126]

as @Jessica-and-Henry0 say, '' Would not recommend for a shared house situation'' is better than not recommending full stop. At whole place rentals we are mostly concerned that general rules and cleanliness are adhered to, not if the guest wasn't polite enough.