Hello Community- Is there any advantage to me as a host for "not reviewing" a difficult guest, other than the fact that their possibly negative review of me will not appear on my profile? I have not seen any other discussion relating to the question of whether or not I will be penalized by ABB for not reviewing a guest who has apparently reviewed me, so I welcome anyone's thoughts on this please.
I am torn about whether I should review this guest or not. She rented a room in my home for an entire month and even wanted to extend her stay, but I found her extremely difficult to host. Her daughter (who lives near me) is the one who booked her stay, and I was out of town when the booking came through, so I did not take the time to see the possible red flag in that, (and I had Instant Book on, which I am now regretting). I have hosted for the past 2 years and have only had one other difficult guest, so I am not sure what to do about reviewing her. Her daughter has been booking ABB places for her mom for the past 4 months while she deals with her husband's health situation.
I believe she is an active alcoholic and she was very, very difficult to live with- she talked "at me" whenever I was there- even when I was in the other room, she would just talk and talk and talk. I would go in to cook dinner, and she would sit in the living room talking "at me." She has absolutely no sense of boundaries whatsoever. I actually had to tell her one night that I did not want to be rude, but that I needed some space with my own thoughts each evening and could not talk with her for hours each night after a long day at work. I asked her to confine her drinking to her room, which she did. She complained that my listing should have said "no heavy drinking," which believe me, it now does, though I told her that someone's drinking had never been an issue in two years of more than 20 guests. She did clean up the place before departing, and the empty wine bottles filled my recycling bin to overflowing!
This guest was a major hassle to have in my home, but I did not want to cancel her visit and be penalized for that. Her stay was a real lesson in setting boundaries. I feel somewhat obligated to review her so that future guests can be warned about her, but I live in a small-ish community, and her daughter lives here, so I don't want to create any negative blowback from her daughter.
I welcome anyone's thoughts on how to handle this. I realize that alcoholism is a disease (my father is 27 years sober in AA), so I hate to punish her for that, but I also believe that she is NOT the most "suitable" guest to share someone's home, given her interpersonal communication skills. Give her an apartment of her own- no problem- but sharing a home is going to be a huge burden on the host. I found myself avoiding going home and that is certainly no way to live!
Thanks so much for any hosting wisdom you can share about my situation. This whole episode does make me also question whether I should limit my guest stays to a week or two, and not allow any month-long stays, to avoid situations like this in the future.