Christmas guest blames host for something they did

[Anthony608]

I have to say, this is a new one.  I had two guests stay at my home for about a week over Christmas.  Very nice people, every so often I would check in on them and ask how they were doing.  No complaints and the husband actually said what a wonderful house it was and how nice their stay was.

When the couple left, I went to inspect the room and found two items of note.  First there was a can of dip in the trashcan, as well as little black dots on the carpet leading from the bed to the trash.  Pretty clear that someone had been dipping in bed, went to throw the dip away, and dripped some on the carpet.  On the table in the room were also crumbs from what looked like toast or cookies.  I figured the people in the room had eaten at the table and not cleaned it up.  Also, quite odd, some of the larger furniture in the room had been moved around or pulled away from the wall.

Now, this room had been cleaned thoroughly prior to the guests arrival.  The table in particular since we had cleaned the table cover and I had changed out some pages in the house manual and had put the manual back on the table so I knew it had been clean.  That’s important to know in a minute.

The guest’s account was apparently maintained by the wife and, upon departure, a review was left almost immediately.  I replied in kind, but marked them down on cleanliness to 4 stars because there had been dip spilled on the carpet and crumbs left all over the table.

Four star review from the guests and the wife put in the comments that the house was unclean.  In the feedback to me, she stated that the room was dirty and that there was a can of dip in the trash can and crumbs on the table.  Another issue she actually said the sheets hadn’t been changed (which was completely untrue) and went into somewhat of a tirade about the house being too far away from their Christmas plans (3 stars in location, but we all know about that and the problems of that category).

It then became clear the furniture had been moved around probably because she was looking for problems, maybe saying there was trash under the bed or behind the bookcase.  When none was found she actually wrote that the trash left by her and her husband had been in the room previously.

She put “I won’t be back” on the review.  Good!

[Mike-And-Helen0]

@Anthony608 was this J from C?

I thought your response was very dignified.

She comes over like someone with issues.

[Rowena29]

@Anthony608 

It's frustrating and also quite underhand. 

You know under the new review guidelines you could probably have a crack at getting this review removed - she's gone on so much about the location which borders on being "irrelevant". 

If it's not removed though, i think it will read to future guests as  "i am peeved and bitter because I made lots of assumptions without actually reading the listing carefully to ensure it met my needs.  So  I'll have a rant and take it out on the host - it can't possibly be MY fault"         What a wombat.

[Ute42]

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Hi @Anthony608  

I'm confused with the location of Your place „Private Room in townhouse/Metro Bus access“

This is the place where Your cristmas guests complained about the location

When I look at the map in Your airbnb-listing, I see this:

Close to Rockville, far from Washington DC

When I zoom into the airbnb map, I see this:

You seem to be located in a community called Willson Hills, that's where airbnb pinned your place. But in Your listing description You state, You are located in Silver Spring, this is only half way to Washington DC compared to Willson Hills.

This is what I get when I go to google maps directely:

Where actually are You?

[Anthony608]

@Ute42- The area I live is in Montgomery County, Maryland and the zip code is registered to the community of Silver Spring. There actually is no town called "Wilson Hills", this I think is the name of a neighborhood community located in Silver Spring.  My property records also list me as living in Silver Spring, Maryland which is where the property comes up when searching on the AirBNB website (at least when I do it).

Guests blaming hosts that the location of their homes are not close enough to their activities is nothing new on AirBNB.  One would think guests would look and see where the home is located (like you did) prior to booking to make sure it was near to where they wanted to be.  The home is also located literally ten minutes away from the DC subway which goes directly downtown, making it appealing to many of the people who have visited me.

Back to the original post, I think this woman was literally just looking for problems.

[Ange2]

@Anthony608     I agree, I  would not be in the least surprised if she was searching for a problem. Some people just love to complain  and a small percentage will even go as far as setting the scene themselves if they cannot find it under a microscopic search. Others have the disease of projection:  they blame and penalize the host for their own bad behavior and irresponsibility,  even to the point of outright dishonesty and lies.  Fortunately, they are, in my experience, few and far between, but not few and far enough to prevent a complete trashing of a  hosts listing because of the weight Airbnb assigns to them.

It would not be so very bad (a rant review can be responded to)  if Airbnb didn't pile on with its penalize the host model, refusing to remove the proven retaliatory/petty/irrelevant damning rating.  Airbnb says if the irrelevant review  is 'useful' for future guests it won't be removed (and neither will the rating) .  'Useful'  appears to mean pandering to irresponsible guests who do not read, ( it's unlikely such guests will read these Airbnb deemed 'useful' reviews either),  do no research, suffer from magical thinking and unrealistic expectations or are just plain petty, even nasty.

Tell us if you manage to have it removed or if it is deemed 'useful' by Airbnb.  I don't hold out much hope for removal having had even more egregious and dishonest reviews/ratings denied deletion, even though they have been proven to be so by the guest's own ranting and entitled communications.

[Anthony608]

@Ange2- The only thing that makes any kind of sense is that the woman was such a dingbat and so out of it that she didn't realize or pay attention that her husband/boyfriend was the one dipping in bed and eating at the table.  She struck me as that type of person and I have seen the kind before.  Reminds me of many years ago, when I was a waiter, and you knew certain people who sat down at the table were already looking for problems.  She had also never used AirBNB before, and the fact that she was pulling furniture away from the walls is a dead giveaway she was looking for issues.  There is no reason why anyone would do that, other than to be looking under and behind things for ammo to complain about.

The only other alternative is a full blown extortion scheme, i.e. plant trash and then try to get a refund.  I don't think that was the case here but it wouldn't surprise me if she called customer service and tried to make an issue about something, but I have heard nothing yet and probably won't by this point. 

I've never been forced to give a refund, and AirBNB has usually been really good about dealing with vengeful guests.  I have had two over the past year.  One never showed up and tried to lie about entering the house and finding it dirty.  They didn't know the door key code had a record of when it was used and there was no record of entry for them.  I actually refunded them anyway, just to avoid a problem.  The other guest had put all in the messages that she wanted a  discount and flat out said when she arrived half price or she would complain.  I advised her about the extortion policy and she backed off but still left a four star overall with 2s and 3s in the individual categories.  With over a hundred reviews by that point, she wasn't worth contacting AirBNB.

[Ange2]

@Anthony608    It can feel a little like running the gauntlet between Airbnb penalties and a guest's bad behavior.