Picky, picky picky... How do you handle THOSE nitpicking and/or demanding guests?

[Huma0]

Oh, so here we go again. I had a guest check in yesterday evening and I already have a bad feeling. Okay, so she hasn't said or done anything major, but it's only a day since she arrived and, already:

1. Asked some questions, but ignored my questions and then instant booked anyway.

2. Wanted to check in at 1am. My check in is from 3-9pm.

3. Agreed to check in the next day, but was vague about the time and seemed surprised that I would want to know. I asked her in that case to give me an hour's notice, to which she agreed. Instead, she messaged me 15 minutes before arrival.

4. Didn't mention to me prior to booking that she has an allergy to cats. I have three of them and clearly state in my house rules to not book if you are allergic.

5. Making comments about how many stairs there are to her room (not only on the listing but reiterated to her in the message thread before she booked).

5. Asking if she could keep her toiletries in the bathroom, to which I said yes, but then she wanted to put them in my personal cupboard, to which I said no. Now she wants me to provide an 'attractive' basket for them.

6. Complained that the WiFi in her room doesn't work properly and has disrupted her work meeting. WiFi is working fine for everyone else, but I go up to check and there are five bars. All seems to be working fine, but I reboot anyway.

7. When asked if the room was warm enough, said yes, but later said the radiators weren't working properly. When I asked if it was okay to go check them, suddenly she says they are working now. I literally haven't adjusted anything so that makes no sense.

8. Questions about the door handle on her bedroom door. She is having trouble using it.

9. Asking for 'communal' food items that are neither specified on my listing, nor shown to guests on the check in tour, when they are clearly shown which things are there for their use and told not to help themselves to other food.

10. There was also some miscommunication RE her work set up, which I am not totally comfortable with.

So, this is all small stuff (I have probably forgotten something), but has all happened prior to or within 24 hours of the guests arrival and she is here for one month. Normally I would have asked the guest by this stage if everything is okay with their stay, but I hardly need to as she is quite happy to find ways to keep me on my toes.

[Huma0]

@Stephanie365 

Part of the problem is Airbnb's rating system. If anything less than 5* was considered okay, then it would be easier to knock a star off here and there for a less than perfect guest. However, when you as a host know that 4* does not mean 'very good' , then it seems harsh to give 3* or 4*.

Personally, I wouldn't care if I didn't get 5* all the time, if that genuinely meant 'very good' or 'better than expected' as Airbnb tells guests. However, we know that is not the case and that anything under 4.7* is considered substandard and that you're going to get warning messages from Airbnb if you don't consistently get 5*.

So, I feel it somewhat unfair to be harsh when rating guests unless they were serious issues. Do I only give 5* for cleanliness when the guest keeps the place immaculate? No. I give them that as long as they are reasonably tidy and only knock off stars for the guests that really leave a mess.

[Helen744]

@Huma6  I think sometimes the review can be a little subtle and still get across that she was an odd and irritating person.time to put your thinking cap on because you cannot say any of those things I can hear you thinking. I had a guest recently who seemed lovely but who kept ringing me at home describing his adventures,harmless with a lovely manner but seemed a bit of a weirdo pest ,clueless and such a bumbler I thought he was pretending. Paid before he came but managed to get a refund that he was not entitled to and managed to leave owing me for an extra night.Eventually repaid it but I was glad he was gone .I am veering along the lines of not writing a review at all.Many hosts dont.or patting myself on the back for surviving it.I suspect if you found her annoying others will too but I think if she was not outright damaging then just say the usual,like, "she did not read my house rules,which are few but important for all guests to read and for the peaceful co existence of all resident guests" As a host this always makes my job easier" you are a very experienced host and have weathered all types of people so in the long run just be pleased she has gone. H

[Huma0]

@Helen744 

Yes, I have often felt this way, i.e. a guest who wasn't terrible but who was annoying/demanding/weird is gone and I'm relieved. I don't always feel the need to leave a review for these types if I feel that most hosts would be fine with them. I am, after all, in a homestay situation with long term guests, which means I spend a lot more time with them than most hosts would.

Perhaps some of them would be pestering the off site host too, like your guest who kept ringing you for no good reason, but for this particular girl, I don't think that's the case, judging by her other reviews. It seems she had very little contact with the off site hosts. So, I don't necessarily feel like she should come with a 'warning message'. I could tell from her correspondence that she was going to be demanding, but there were no huge red flags to make me cancel her instant booking. This was, however, the straw that broke the camel's back for me and made me finally decide to switch off IB. If it had been an enquiry or request booking, this guest never would have ended up staying with me!

Anyway, what I mean to say is that I probably would have not left a review at all, but I do try to leave a review for every guest who reviews me. I feel like it's fulfilling my part of the bargain.

[Elisabeth40]

What I would do and I always do in this type of situations, I tell the guest: I sincerely apologize my listing is not reaching your expectations, I see you are clearly unhappy with a lot of things, I offer you to cancel your stay now and just get a refund for the future booked days. You don’t need to suffer here, I don’t want you to be unhappy and I think you deserve better. I live at my place which I’m renting out here on Airbnb. I have always new guests and it would be such awful life to have 24/7 constant unhappy people around me and to jump for everything. It’s not possible. Either you made a mistake as you offered a place and painted your property to nice maybe? Or a guest is just using the advantage of never had a specific description of what they get. I always ask the guests to review the listing and the house rules before they book, this is what it is, no more! You need to be very accurate and precise and just don’t even give a room for “apples can be pears maybe”. In my first years of hosting I was scared to be precise because I was anxious not to have guests. But after years I learned it, I have to be very accurate in all described things I sell to the guest. So they cannot complain. You should never leave a room for misinterpretation of a service or goods or place. I personally go a little bit more rough on myself and people often say at the end, it is better as they imagined. Don’t have nice pictures if this is not nice :))) it’s also a thing of being direct and not “maybe” . There is no “maybe” or unclear open endings, it is what it is.