I have a guest who almost from the beginning of her stay was complaining about the heat in our condo. I can see she is from out of state and from somewhere where the temps are more mild than here in Northern CA. However where our condo is located is cooler than most places in CA and AC is not standard or normal in the area. I am running up to the condo tomorrow after she leaves and installing 2 of those window fans that mount in the window and suck in the cooler outside air; and downstairs I am installing a portable AC unit that vents out through the window. Downstairs is where the beds are. I looked into a mini split system and they are not allowed by the HOA.
Call it intuition but I had a feeling about where these complaints were going and frankly the guest looks mentally ill on her profile pic. But I try really hard to please all guests and so far have 23, 5 star ratings out of 24; with the 1 guest giving us 4 stars. We bend over backwards and even leave gift baskets for all guests that value about $25. We truly want people to have a good time and a memorable experience. I've been extremely apologetic to this guest about the heat and asked her if she wants me to do anything. I also told her if she wants to buy a fan to put in the window I would happily reimburse her.
Tonight she tells me that the heat has been really uncomfortable and says there have been several bugs near where she's sleeping and sends me a pic of what looks like a bed bug to me. The pic is very blurry and the background has no context so I don't know where its been taken from. She also complained about the $99 cleaning fee. And she says she can tell I'm a very caring host and that she would hate to leave a negative review and that I should refund what I feel is fair.
So now I feel blackmailed. I'm obviously getting a negative review unless I give her a full refund and even then who knows? An honor amongst thieves type of thing? I have had a ton of feed back over how clean the condo is. The reviews almost always mention how clean it is. I had one guest tell me privately she saw a big ant. Also the $99 cleaning fee we charge doesn't cover the actual cleaning fee of $160 we pay! Which is the norm here. She also booked under the going rate for the condo right now.
The guest also brought a dog and didn't say anything about it in her booking or pay for it. We do have a pet fee. All this got me really thinking so I googled her name and lo and behold she sued her employer for what looks to be a frivolous lawsuit.
What do I do? I reached out to Airbnb; no answer yet. But from past experience Airbnb is slanted towards guests and not hosts so Im worried Im getting a negative review and nothing I can do about it. I just gained super host status. I also leave all guests including the bad ones good reviews out of fear they will leave me a bad review. Thank you for any advice you have.
