Unreasonable Guest?

[Richard1070]

Hello Fellow Hosts and Guests, 

We recently had a guest in our apartment that found the oven unclean which then triggered what appears to be a bit of a witch hunt.  He made a list of all the imperfections in the apartment.  We of course were very apologetic, reacted quickly on the day, cleaned the oven at a time that was convenient for him, and rectified many of the other items he raised that could be sorted on the day (replaced chiped crockery, cleaned the range which was due, replaced stained chopping boards etc).  He conceded that things were much better but was very critical on the message thread saying that we should be inspecting things more often to ensure that these things don't happen.  We explained that we do inspect it quite regularly but guests aren't always as respectful as he is etc etc trying to be nice and explain how quickly things get damaged etc.  We certainly didn't get a thanks for jumping to and getting things straightenned out. He said he'd run hotels for 20 years and we should be more serious about our business, it was all our fault for not inspecting things often enough, he was expecting something special and felt he should have stayed at home in the UK where it was clean.  We did ask him if there were any other issues regarding cleanliness and he didn't come back to us on that.  For the rest of the stay he was quiet.  After he checked out he submitted a claim for money to get about a 50% refund.  He's currently not answering messages. 

His expectation of something special is interesting.  He paid less than AUD160 a night for his stay and got a beach front apartment, two bedrooms, two bathrooms, in room spa, resort facilities including hot tub, sauna, indoor pool, outdoor pool, gym, tennis courts etc.  Next door there is a hotel with inferiour facilities that costs $200 / night for a single king bed room.  So value wise we think it's pretty good, and so have our previous guests.  

Where it gets tricky is that we have great feedback generally.  Our rating got dragged down to 4.8 due to a rogue guest who somewhat trashed the apartment, broke into our cleaning supplies cupboard, used illegal drugs in the space, and stole our neighbors bike then left us a 3 star review, but apart from that it's been mostly 5 stars with the odd four star review.  This guest has said it was the "Worst place he's ever stayed in", which just doesn't in any way reflect how all our other guests see the place, we get a lot of wonderful comments which is warming.  Some of the possible scenario's I've thought may have provoked this are: 

1) He's extremely sensitive to hygiene and finding the dirty oven has psychologically affected him so that there's no way he could see anything else as clean

2) He's jaded from his 20 years of managing hotels and no doubt getting slammed by guests for petty things so is dealing it back out

3) He's simply gunning for a refund

AirBnB have suggested  we refund the cleaning fees after reviewing things.  I am concerned this will anger him as it's well short of what he has asked for (AUD130 verse AUD600). He hasn't reviewed us yet and we're pretty sure, given how rude and unreasonable this guest has been he'll blow up about not getting the refund he has asked for and give us a terrible review.  We raised this concenr with AirBnB are saying the two matters are separate (which is an extremely poor read of human psychology, but that's their view).  We're actually pretty sure the guy is going to slam us in the review anyway so it really feels like a lose lose situation.  We see our options as: 

1) Pay what he's asked now and hope he changes heart for the review

2) Pay a bit more and hope he changes heart for the review

3) Pay what AirBnB suggest and hope he doesn't hold that against us for the review

4) Wait until the review period has expired so our response to the refund request doesn't affect the review either way

5) Other?? 

We're not sure what to do and would like some advise from the AirBnB community.  Thanks in advance!  

Rich and Hayley

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

@Mark116

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/21741038?s=51

Imo, if you compare with the photos that @John the guest posted and how the host  @Richard1070 described that his listing may be run down, not new but clean to fellow hosts on the CC..... I think the listing description and photos shown are extremely misleading. In the listing description "luxury beach pad" is emphasized. 

Like I said before..... the vents are DISGUSTING~!!!! I'm surprised no one has had an asthma attack in that home. 

[John2192]

I am going to leave you to it for now, you have had your Kangaroo Court moment (funny quote that especially as I was in Australia with all them roo's )  Some of you found me guilty, but I understand that ,as you would tend to back the host, if you are a host. ( I thank Helen for having an open mind) 

  I think Richard has answered too many questions with "Nobody has complained about this before".

You should have been saying "I never spotted that before", Do not rely on your guests to report faults, that's a big mistake. You need to check everything before a guest turns up, in this game.

      It's your business, only you can make or break it. You cannot put the blame on others. You seem to have chucked the blame at me. (on this board I am the guest from hell, I love all the names you have been calling me) 😉 Please remember I was on holiday, I reported some things but had such a busy week planning a wedding  and doing holiday trips that I did not have the time to guide you around . You had your chance to look around and spot the other things while you where in the Apartment cleaning the cooker. You are lucky this time, I never filled out your review 

  I am here on this board because you Richard decided to write me a disrespectful review. You switched it around to being my fault. You need to look after your own business and take some responsibility yourself.

“I wish John all the best, however I couldn't recommend him to the AirBnB platform. His expectations were extremely different to all our other guests, his communication was at times rude and he became quite unreasonable.”

[Helen3]

@John thanks for posting and providing your side of the story.

Something didn't feel quite right about how @Richard1070 talked about this situation. Hence my initial response. What he felt was acceptable and the fact that his cleaners  hadn't picked up issues with the oven etc felt a little off.

I agree it's not relevant that these problems hadn't been reported to the host before, you were reporting them now and he was obviously aware of most of them.

What a shame you didn't leave an honest review to help future guests know about your experience of staying at this property. I think you can leave a response to his review, so would be worth doing so.

[John2192]

@Helen3 I think its hard to leave a review when you are in dispute, I took my complaint and request for  a £400.00 refund to the airbnb  resolution centre. 

With an open case and the hope of a refund being dangled in your face , its very hard to write a review without spoiling your chances of a refund. 

Richard kept my hope up till a few days before the review deadline

"It looks like AirBnB have sort of taken this out of my hands and given you a refund for the cleaning. I’m not sure why they decided on a refund lower than what you requested. We are still able to give you a bigger refund so stay tuned, let’s work through this and try to get to an agreeable position".

So false hopes for me, as we see, when my deadline passed for a review, Richard could see this and then decided to review me last minute. very clever on his side. Then he told me he was sticking with airbnb suggestion of a cleaning refund. This was put to him on day one and I had already refused this, but airbnb automatically paid me out.

So airbnb have a review system that is like  a duel, both parties afraid to post anything until the last minute, If they could settle the claim before the review dates ended I feel it may have ended in a better situation for myself. But then probally maybe a worst case for the Host. 

[Richard1070]

Hi Helen, yes, it all feels a bit off to me too.  Perhaps because we're unreasonable (and all our prior and subsequent guests have been too nice to say so) or perhaps because John is being unreasonable.  

[Jessica-and-Henry0]

@John My previous post.......I take it back....... the state of the listing is TOTALLY DISGUSTING~!!!!!!! You absolutely deserve the cleaning fee back.....and a refund. Even though you did not leave a review, I hope you will post a response to the review you got.......you should metion you are more than happy to share YOUR photos of how absolutely filthy the place was.  As a host.....I just cannot imagine how someone could let anyone stay in a home so dirty and filthy. The photos make my skin crawl!!!!!!! 

@Richard1070

I think you should be ashamed of yourself. The vents are totally gross. On your listing you call it "luxury resort style" but here on this post you admit it does need renovations and it's OLD but it's still clean - which it most certainly is NOT clean at all. Your description and photos of the place are completely misleading. 

[Richard1070]

Thanks for the feedback Henry.  We honestly considered a similar opinion to what you're offering here (that we should be ashamed of ourselves and take down the listing).  But how, if it's so badly managed, do we get such good feedback?  There's is of course a possibility that all prior guests have been incredibly lenient, I'm sure our luck will run out soon if that is the case.  Incidentally the two guests since John's stay haven't raised any concerns.  I've asked them for feedback (without the history of course) just to again test if we're being poor managers.  Responses: 

"Love it"

"Everything is great thanks guys" 

[Sarah977]

@John2192@Helen3   I was about to post a response here to say I tended to agree with Helen that the few things @Richard1070 mentioned, chipped crockery, dirty oven, stained cutting boards, are not acceptable in what is supposed to be a higher-end listing. If it was just a budget-priced room in someone's home, with use of the shared with host kitchen, it would be over the top to complain about chipped dishes.

Then before I posted, I went to page 2 and saw your posts.

If these photos are actually of Richard's listing, I'm appalled. You've been treated very unfairly and Richard seems to think none of this is a big deal, only upset about the complaining guest and the refund.

You're correct that when hosts post here complaining about what they consider to be bad guests, other hosts will support them, for the most part, not all, if we feel the host is remiss. That's because there are actually are a whole lot of guests who make things up to get a refund, or complain about silly little things, or post a revenge review because they got their knickers in a knot when asked by the host to please follow the house rules they were ignoring.

And conversely, hosts will often be very supportive of guests who post about conditions that we think are unacceptable, whether it's the place itself, or their host's behavior. We think bad hosts should be removed from the platform, too, it gives Airbnb a bad name and reflects poorly on all of us.

I'm so glad you posted this and so sorry about how it turned out for you. 

What one guest who had received a bad review for little reason, after many good ones, did was edit her profile text to say something like "Please don't judge me as a guest by XXX's review. I'll be happy to explain what the situation actually was if you ask me." In your case, you could actually tell hosts you'd email them photos.

[John1080]

@Sarah977, you're exactly right in that we hosts tend to automatically support fellow hosts because we too have seen the ugly side of some guests. Of course, there are usually two sides to every story and also there is a lot of lack of communication, which can often blow these situations out of proportion. 

Perhaps Richard did not know the state of his space, but he should have and it seems John was completely within his rights to complain about the conditions he found. One or two of those, fine, but all of them taken together, particularly the filthy condition of the cooking spaces and the air vents. That vent looks as if it hadn't been cleaned for months or perhaps years. 

It's a shame that John has gotten a thumbs down over this and I would try to fight it and get it removed if I were him. I find it interesting that for all the negative comments about the guest, when the guest was unknown, now there are almost no comments being posted about this after we see the photos. Where's the outrage now?

[Richard1070]

Hi Everyone, just seen this thread kick off again and John’s comments.  Hi John.  I agree 100% with you that the review system running parallel to a dispute is rediculous and also raised this with AirBnB.  Ok, so now you’ve heard John’s side too.  Just to be clear here, I had a cleaner nearly in tears swearing that the oven was clean.  So I’m not even 100% sure that it wasn’t, John’s word against the cleaners, but was happy to race down there and clean it myself which I did along with the chipped plates, burnt frypan etc.  I also asked John to let us know if there were any other cleanliness issues and he didn’t raise anything.  John has done a great job taking up-close photos of small defects trying to make everything look terrible.  And perhaps it is, but it just seems uncannily coincidental that the two guests who’ve followed John have been really happy with the apartment and we haven’t made any special efforts to fix chipped paintwork etc.  Regarding the vent above the bathroom shower, which seems to have been held up as an example here, this does get cleaned regularly as per my response to John, we actually remove it and wash it (vacuuming with the brush doesn’t really cut it). John had us really losing sleep for a while there such was his criticism.  We paused the listing while we reconsidered and for some feedback from the next guest (without mentioning any of this).  Our decision to re-list and was mainly based on the fact we’ve had about 100 guests through all of whom have been happy apart from John. Time will tell if we are not playing fair on the AirBnB platform, that’s one great thing about the review system, there’s no hiding if you’re a host.  Regarding the price too, renting a 2 bedroom apartment in the hotel next door (with inferior facilities) costs $400 a night whilst renting our place cost John about $160 a night.  So yes, we could go all out with a full scale renovation but it would probably end up resulting in a significant price hike.  

[Mark116]

@Richard1070

I would sack your cleaners, the vent fan obviously hadn't been cleaned in a long time, so I don't think the cleaners are doing what they say they are doing.  I suppose it's possible that the guests right before made massive use of the oven, but it seems more probable that the oven too, hadn't been cleaned in a while.  Yes, some of the 'issues' were minor, but also some things, like the scratches on the furniture are easy to fix, just spend $5 on a varnish pen!  

[Susan17]

So this is essentially a "he said, he said" situation. One word against the other. And it appears that, in most eyes anyway, @John2192 is the injured and aggrieved party here, and @Richard1070 is the filthy, irresponsible, unfit host. Really?  I don't get it, guys. I honestly don't get it

Richard has 41 reviews from guests, containing all the evidence anyone could possibly need, to confirm that his guests love his listing, and he's consistently proven  himself to be a very competent and caring host. "Richard was fantastic"... "Ocean paradise"... "Staying with Richard was an extremely enjoyable experience"... "This place is a little piece of magic".. "Great stay for us. We found an amazing place, nice, clean and comfortable apartment and great host Richard. We felt like at home"... "Fantastic apartment, location can’t be beat!"... "The apartment is modern and has everything you need..the pool, gym, tennis courts are a bonus!!"... "Richard was easy to get in touch with. Can’t fault the experience!"... "We stayed with an 8-month old baby and would definitely return".. "Never want to leave this place". Plenty more in exactly the same vein. And in the "listing highlights",  Airbnb proclaims that no fewer than 11 recent  reviewers have stated that Richard's place was "sparkling clean".  It's all there in black and white. That sound to anyone like a terrible host who deserves to be slated and berated by his guest, let alone by his fellow hosts??  

Yes, the host dropped the ball on this one occasion. Nobody, least of all Richard, is denying that there was an epic screw-up with the cleaning - that oven ain't pretty! But it's crystal clear from Richard's other 41 eviews that this was an aberration - and an entirely unprecedented aberration, at that - rather than his standard practice. A mistake. An oversight. Like we all make on occasion.

As soon as John's issues were brought to his attention, Richard was very apologetic and reacted quickly and positively to rectify the situation, and I think most reasonable guests would have been more than satisfied with that, along with the return of the cleaning fee, and would have been gracious enough to recognise the situation for what it was - just an unfortunate one-off blunder on the host's part. Human error. Nothing more, nothing less. Hardly a hanging offence. Absolutely no need whatsoever to turn it into a major drama or a power-trip over the host at all. (Unless, of course, there was an ulterior motive)

A simple, amicable solution obviously wasn't enough for John, though. Instead of getting on with enjoying the awesome 2-bed, 2 bath beachfront property in a fantastic location, with views to die for, in-room spa, heated pool, private beach, gym, sauna, hot tub and tennis courts, at a really great price (as described and appreciated by all Richard's other guests), John instead took the time to intimately scrutinise his host's space, camera and notebook at the ready, to fire off a 45-point snag-list of criticisms and complaints - a few valid, most preposterously petty. Armed with the zooooomed-in pics of dust bunnies on an extractor fan and a multitude of super-close-up shots of many different parts of the one offending oven (for maximum shock value), he embarked on his mission to shame Richard for his "negligence", and extract an AUD $600 refund from him to boot. (Any pics of the oven after Richard rushed to clean it as soon as you snapped your fingers, John?)  $600.  For a few relatively minor inconveniences that your host moved to address immediately. Seriously?? 

I can't really get my head around this either, so perhaps you could please enlighten me as to why you - or anyone else - would feel that you should be entitled to benefit to the tune of a whopping AUD $600, at someone else's expense, solely as a result of that person's clearly unintentional mishap? How is that the right or fair thing to do, in anyone's language? Was it really such a traumatic and distressing experience for you that you needed AUD$600 to get over it? Or maybe just a lnice little windfall for Chrimbo, to ease your pain?  (Never ceases to amaze me how cold hard cash always seems to be the magic salve for all the world's sleights and grievances, be they real or imagined... )

You mentioned your other Airbnb stays, John, and in your review of your previous host Suzanne, who - wouldn't ya know it - "cleans her apartment to an extremely high standard", you said that she was the best host out of four hosts that you'd stayed with in WA at that time.. I'm just wondering where the reviews of your other three hosts are then? Only Suzanne's good review, and Richard's not-so-good review, are visible on your profile. Did your other hosts fail to review you, for some reason? If so, why do you think that might be? Either way, not a great review rate of you though, is it - one positive review on your profile out of five stays? 20%. 1 star. Doesn't bode well (You do seem to be very well acquainted with how the Airbnb review system works for a guest with only 2 reviews though, I'll give you that)

Can I also just ask - genuine question - what do you believe gives you the right to go into another person's home (anyone's home), and treat them as if they're something you brought in on the bottom of your shoe? Regardless of the circumstances - circumstances that your host immediately did his best to rectify - you were in his home, lording your alleged 20 years hotel experience over him, viciously critiquing every nook and cranny of his property, you made him jump through hoops to meet your demands, then tried to force him to jump through more hoops to appease you, and pontificated on what he should and shouldn't do, in his own home and with his own business. On the day of his son's 5th birthday. Nice.  

So whilst you do seem to have quite a few hosts here who - sadly - appear to believe that a grimy oven and a one-off, sub-par cleaning job somehow eclipses you bullying, disrespecting and demeaning your host, I'd have to strongly disagree with their viewpoint on that. Others might see it differently, but to me, this quote from you to Richard tells me all I need to know about how you operate. 

"So you chose to go to your sons 5th Birthday rather than stay and sort things out"

Yes John. After cleaning the oven, Richard chose to go to his son's 5th birthday, rather than stay and pander to a total stranger's petulant demands. As any decent man would do. The fact that you appear to have some difficulties with that, or would expect any father to do otherwise, says far more about you, than it says about Richard. 

So I stand firmly with my fellow host @Richard . Not because he's my fellow host, but because having carefully weighed up both  sides of the story,  he's by far the more credible party here. 

[John2192]

@Susan17  one positive review on your profile out of five stays? 20%.

Who said i booked everything through airbandb, jumping to conculsions now .  I did not book every apartment on airbnb so how can i get a review ?

@Susan17 "Can I also just ask - genuine question - what do you believe gives you the right to go into another person's home (anyone's home), and treat them as if they're something you brought in on the bottom of your shoe? "

You are putting words in my mouth. I would never use a term like that. (bottom of shoe) your words.

I have the right as a paying guest to the  Awesome accommodation as advertised.

If Richard  could  have inspected it before I had my rental period. To correct what you think are minor issues.

  The list i made for Richard came from memory, I told him that. It was a week later I sent the list as Richard was egging me along having trouble deciding what to do and asking for suggestions. I gave him the list to help him.

The photographs?????  It says on airbnb that 

" If an issue occurs during your stay, contact us right away. We'll ask you to provide photographs or other documentation that show what you're experiencing".

I did what I was supposed to do ref airbnb policy.

@Susan17 just an unfortunate one-off blunder on the host's part. Human error. Nothing more, nothing less.

 I would never let a guest enter a room that was not ready, NO to HUMAN error, its his business and he must take full control of it.

@Susan17As soon as John's issues were brought to his attention, Richard was very apologetic and reacted quickly and positively to rectify the situation, and I think most reasonable guests would have been more than satisfied with that,

No, he came tried to sort things out and left as it took him longer than expected to fix things to a correct standard. He promised to come back, But never, decided to leave me in a not so clean place. I reached out for a cleaner, and he came and did half a job. He said he was coming back, so I took him at his word.

[Richard1070]

I apologise again to John for the dirty oven and pans if indeed that is how you found them, we have always been apologetic to John about this.  However in John's response to Susan he's exaggerating.  Perhaps we should we post the whole thread?  John didn't ask for a cleaner, he reported some dirty items, which we went and cleaned and he responded after returning to the apartment by saying "It's all better than when we arrived. You should visit more often and keep an eye on things. It's your business. When going away and paying such a fee you hope that the place is special. I could have stayed home in a cleaner place. . Enjoy your party."  On the same day I asked him if there was any other cleanliness issues he had noticed so I could specifically raise them with the cleaner.  He didn't bring anything else up until after the stay when he sent AirBnB a long list of super zoomed in photos, all of which no other guest has noticed prior or since.

Also, this is what John means when he said I egged him on:

11 Dec 2018: Hi John, apologies for not getting in touch with you earlier. The request for money didn't come through to the mobile app and we just happened to log onto the desktop version yesterday and discovered it. Our understanding was that AirBnB (which was originally a platform for renting airbeds on people's floors) was about sharing spaces and experiences rather than providing a cold and generic hospitality experience. Your feedback is hard to hear and we're sincerely sorry if we ruined your trip to Australia. We've taken the listing down while we re-assess things. AirBnB have reached out to me and suggested refunding the cleaning fees which is well short of your request so I need to sit down and discuss this with Hayley. Options we'll consider are 1) Following AirBnB's suggestion of refunding the cleaning fees. 2) Refund the £400 you have requested or 3) increase the refund. I'll give you and update once I've spoken to Hayley.

13 Dec 2018: "Hi John, we’re finding this situation hard to reconcile. Having overwhelming great feedback from other guests we just don’t understand how it was the worst place you’ve ever stayed at. Particularly for the price, you could have stayed next door at Renezvous Hotel and paid more money for a 40m2, one bed hotel room with inferior views and facilities. So we’re still considering things and have reached out to some other hosts as well to determine what’s normal in this situation. Thanks for your patience. Rich and Hayley"  

For those that want to see what the place looks like without the ultra zoom on things see the listing which si back up:  https://www.airbnb.com.au/rooms/21741038?preview_for_ml=true&guests=1&adults=1

We are yet to get professional photography done, we took the photos ourselves on an iphone, no filter, no airbrushing, no photoshopping etc.  Also, see this site for some of the other facilities here which we haven't captured in the listing: https://www.observationriserealty.com.au/gallery/ 

This is the hotel literally next door https://www.tfehotels.com/en/hotels/rendezvous-hotels/perth-scarborough/

$160 a night is a very good price for our accomodation and this is something our prior and subsequent guests have vouched for.  John has been the only one who hasn't liked the apartment out of about 100 reservations.  No other disputes, no bad reviews, just happy guests.  

We've been very apologetic from the time John reported the dirty oven and kitchen items.  We acted fast and cleaned them.  John didn't report any other issues directly to us until after the stay when he sent his dispute through and asked for a $600 refund (half the cost of the stay).  

Rich

[John2192]

@Susan17   I had a quick look at your reviews, and what you have over @Richard1070  is the fact that you  are more hands on, you have more praise as a host becasuse you are more involved with the guests. It seems that you are more involved with your home's and the welcoming of guests, I paraise that, you are doing an amazing job.   Quote   "Susan’s place is what true Airbnb is about"  you are a credit to airbnb and your business.    I mistakenly thought that all  airbnb rental apartments where more hands on with cleaning and inspectimg and handing over to guests etc. I guess I have learnt a lesson and that in future I need to pick a hands on host. 

    Suzanne  from the other airbnb had the same attitude, she was welcoming and showed us around her home and was proud of it. that's why I gave here a good review as she deserved it. 

@Richard1070    airbnb  have a getting starded list  No 3 is as follows

Guide to becoming a host

Prepping your space

Tidy up

Clean each room that guests can access, especially bedrooms, bathrooms, and the kitchen. Check that there’s no hair, dust, or mould on surfaces and floors, and make the bed(s) with fresh linens.

That seems like an easy getting started tip to me. Its short and simple, gets right to the point. you failed on the tidy up rule.