Good afternoon 🙂
I recently had a guest who stayed at my Casita for two nights and had decided to dye her hair with a violet toner that destroyed a brand new set of sheets, pillow cases, pillow liners, shower liner, shower curtain and even a dining napkin. I had recently upgraded to a brand new clawfoot tub as well that was a mess to clean out the toner. How I came to the discovery that is was a dye/toner was she had left the empty bottle on the bathroom floor.
We had discovered the damage after she checked out but I did not want to mention anything to the guest until after the review process in fear of a defensive retaliatory review (that as you all know does serious damage to any host). I decided that if the guest does not bring it up before check out then they have no desire to take any accountability and could even hold you review hostage. In my heart of hearts I wanted to believe that she did not notice the stains and therefore did not bring it up but then came the reviews.
I left my review and gave her 2 stars on cleanliness, and 5 stars on everything else but was completely honest and fair about the review itself. I had left only one other bad review in the past out of 100+ and so I wasn't feeling great about it but felt that was the only way to convey my disappointment and warn hosts that using products like this can have quite a destructive impact. She left a great review and 5 stars across the board.
As soon she saw here review I received a concerning text from her being very apologetic and saying she no idea that her "shampoo" had any dye etc when in fact the bottle she had left was not any type of shampoo but clearly stated dye/toner. I let her know its no hard felling and I truly appreciate the apology and then asked politely if she would be willing to pay for a new set of sheets. I would out of my own pocket cover the rest of the items damaged splitting the costs. She said she would have no problem doing that but then asked in return if I can edit my review.
Now Im feeling that I being held hostage trying to receive 1/3 compensation for something she clearly destroyed in return to alter my review. Well I know that once both parties leave a review there's no editing of the review you left so I told her I will contact the support team to see what we can do to resolve this and in the meantime told her the cost of the sheets and gave her my venmo. Well she never sent any funds and texted a few times that I need to change my review sooner than later as she is really hoping to book another place soon and this dent look good for her.
What do I do or what can I do in this situation? Honestly at this rate I could care less about the money and feel spending so much time to remedy a better review for her through the Support dept. is not only a huge waste of time but I dont think she is truly sincere in taking accountability over her ratings.
I appreciate your advice and thank you for listening.
