I am rather disheartened by the whole Airbnb experience of hosting and am wondering if I am oversetting my expectations. We've been running the AirBnb experiment for a month renting out a vacant apartment that is part of our house. We had recently repaired and renovated it.
I have had 5 guests so far. 4 have been fine. I just had a problem with one last night.
The first issue I have had with guests is the lack of reviews. Reviews help with trust and improve bookings. I've had 4 great guests and have given them all reviews. They all said they had a great time and liked the space. I have received one review back. I've asked, but am nottrying not to pester people about giving me reviews.
What do I set as expectations on expecting reviews? How long does it take to build up reviews?
The second issue I had a guest that brought a dog and an unauthorized guest on to the property. I specifically have a no pets policy and no unauthorized guests. His truck was also blocking the driveway which I ask people not to do in the manual for safety reasons. I had done the woman a favor last night by booking her for two more days (this was before we knew about the dog , the guy and the truck blocking the property--they arrived at midnight). She was nice, but I don't want extra people in my rental unless I know about it (I charge for extra people after 2 people) and unless I know who they are (I have an 8 year old daughter). I don't want pets due to the fact that I spent thousands of dollars to fix the apartment due to a prior tenant's pet doing damage via urination and spraying; my cats were going crazy last night, and my cats will spray when they go into the apartment due to the dog scent. I've messaged the woman via the AirBnb system, and left her a telephone message. I now have an issue with the Resolution Center after I called in, but now I think the guest still thinks she is coming back, she has my keys to my apartment and has not gotten back to me.
Having a guest break the rules upsets me. You want to be a good host, and be kind and treat the guest well, but you don't want guests who break the rules, even if they are 'nice' people. Nice people don't break the rules, or they ask first.
My husband wishes to take a soft approach. He knew about the dog and the man at midnight and didn't do anything or tell me until this morning. I would prefer not to have this guest anymore, as she broke the rules, and now I can't let my cats in the apartment until any dog scent is cleared out so they don't spray.
This woman had booked for 2 more nights, but was not supposed to be coming back tonight. She was supposed to come back early Thursday. I still haven't heard from her. I would prefer just to cancel the reservation, as we are going to have to thoroughly clean before guests get here on Friday.
This whole is experience is just leaving me rather lukewarm and disheartened after 1 month of renting out apartment out. I had not wanted to do a long term rental. We did that for years, and lose control of the property when we rent it out long term.
AirBnb brings in extra income which helps because my husband is currently not working but it's also means more fighting between us due to our approach on how to deal with renting, guests & issues, and losing a significant square footage of my property that we used to use - we are down to 1 bathroom for 3 people, and we downsized from 1900 square feet to 1500 square feet to rent out the property. It used to be a space that we used to exercise/art studio/tv room/laundry and gave us an extra bathroom.
My husband would prefer to continue renting, and take a softer approach on guests; I'd prefer to stop renting and have my space and my bathroom back. If we have to rent, then I want to take a zero tolerance approach.
And I don't know what to do about the lack of reviews. I guess I was expecting more people to review. I guess no reviews is better than bad reviews.
Wendy
Wendy
