Guest leaves home in complete disarray and rearranged without approval?

[Dominic101]

I have a guest that has stayed about 6 weeks. 

1. They communicated and asked if they could come in 4 days early, I agreed. I asked them to go through

AirBnB to make the change...they did not want to do that...so they were just going to pay me and I would

then get with AirBnB to see how to handle that with them.

2. They arrived and immediately complained about the cleanliness (I am a superhost and have high marks

for cleaning)..I asked for photos but they had cleaned up and not taken any at that time according to them.

3. I gave them the 4 days for free (about $400) as they asked me to do that and since they were staying for a 

lengthy amount of time did not have an issue doing that for them so no need to get with AirBnB.

4. Received complaints on just about everything, from not having enough television service (plainly stated in my ad

regarding streaming and what is available, to couch being uncomfortable, stove elements being stained, needing

more outside chairs etc etc. 

5. Purchased more television services for them, purchased complete stove elements and other items for stove,

authorized 2 more outdoor chairs to be purchased for reimbursement. Could not do anything about the couch and 

have never had a complaint about it before.

6. Even after all this, they then asked me about renting for next year for about the same time and asking me if  I could

do it outside of AirBnB to which I refused with explanation as to why. They then decide to go ahead anyway, they then

asked me to give them a discount to which I replied I could do a little but high season is very competitive here in Florida.

I told them to send a request which I would decline and then make them a special offer showing the discount we had 

agreed on. Once I did that, they then told me they had made a mistake on the dates and needed another week to add 

to their time. I tried to go in and adjust the dates for them but was unable to. I then emailed them to make another request

with the corrected dates and I would cancel and make that offer. While this was going on, someone else booked instantly

for the entire season without any discounts over what we offer for weekly and monthly stays. I actually thought it was them 

at first but found out it was not. I immediately emailed with apologies and that I would assist in finding them another rental

in our area since we know so many people. I worked on that for days and found a few and emailed them to her. She found

issues with each one of them and claiming the dates were not available yet by my search the dates were available.

7. They just checked out and my cleaners emailed me to say they had rearranged the house, including putting many of our

decorations and furniture into the master closet and leaving other furniture in places we did not have it. I do not know if this

is retaliatory behavior but it is NOT acceptable. I have not found a way to contact AirBnB directly to report this and to get their

advice. I am NOT happy about what I have read is AirBnB's policy regarding guests behavior and them not wanting to do anything

about it or remove bad ratings (which I believe I am going to get because of how they left the house.)

Any advise from hosts or even from AirBnB would be appreciated before this gets out of hand.

Thank you kindly

Dominic

[Corliss2]

I can appreciate your frustration and can sense it in the tone of your wording.

First off, be sure to wait a few days before you review this guest. You may even want to wait until the last possible minute on day 14. You will need to leave a professional, objective, and accurate review, based on what we, as hosts, can speak to. Then, give them a "thumbs down. You could post a rough draft of your review here for suggestions prior to posting it.

Granted, this was not an ideal guest, but beyond the demands and minor annoyances, sounds like they were not "terrible." Honestly, would you host them again? Would you want to inflict them onto other hosts? Sometimes we can bend over backwards for a guest and they will still be unsatisfied. 

Going forward, should they leave a review for you, you can respind to the public feedback. When doing this, be mindful that the audience for your response is future guests. Address only issues raised in the public portion of their review. Thank them for the feedback, be apologetic, not defensive, remain objective, professional, and concise. A long-winded rant will not beto your benefit.

[Dominic101]

Thank you kindly Corliss

Yes there is certainly frustration here and the constant "disappointed" emails that we kept receiving did not help this situation. We kept it always professional though and plowed through it. I put this to the community before putting it out there for just this kind of advice and it is well received. We have been Superhosts for quite some time, but some people can wear on you (which they certainly did).

No, we would not rent to them again...there are way to many great guests to have to suffer through those that are not and then wanting to do it again?! We thought at first we would try and being that we had been through it all with them (or so we thought), then to have my house completely rearranged with decorations stuffed into a closet and leaving it that way with no word whatsoever after over 30 emails back and forth is just unacceptable to us. A complete disregard for someone else's home and belongings is just bad form no matter where anyone is from.

I think hosts NEED to start giving guests the correct rating they deserve since we are all in this together as hosts and guests. Although we have not had the displeasure of having poor guests I have read so many times of the issues to then find out they were like that with other hosts. It seems AirBnB is not very responsive to the hosts that actually pay them and if this situation gets out of hand and we get no assistance from AirBnB, we will pull our homes off and keep them on other sites and let the entire community know...but we will cross that bridge when and if we come to it. The good thing is we do not need this to survive, we do it because we love to meet people and we use AirBnB as guests too.

Thank you for responding...its nice to know the community has our back and others can help when things seem gloomy.

Dominic

[Mark116]

@Dominic101  I think these guests took major advantage of you, there is no reason to keep buying extra stuff for people when/if the listing was always clear about what is, is not included. You should be glad that you dodged a bullet in that someone else IB's your place with no demands, no requests for discounts.

I have found that the people who make the most requests are usually the worst guests who leave the worst reviews.  I wouldn't though be too put out about furniture being moved around, yes it IS annoying, but if nothing was taken or damaged, consider you got off lucky.

[Dominic101]

Thank you Mark;

My wife and I agree, although we have been in business all of our adult lives. We do everything we can do for our guests and then some...we just always believe people appreciate the little things...this is the first one we have had to constantly hold their hands over everything yet we did it with professionalism. 

I can appreciate that some hosts would not feel uncomforable about guests leaving their homes rearranged, although we feel differently about that...maybe it is because we are completely respectful when we travel as guests to others homes and belongings. To be perfectly honest, the pile was rather messy so we dont know yet if anything is missing or broken as our cleaners found it and we are overseas at the moment so, they would not know what was there or where it all went. Moving bedroom furniture into other rooms, moving heavy furniture to other parts of the house etc. is not something we ever expected someone to do. Moving some chairs or smaller things sure, no problems but.....I think you get the idea. This is OUR home, not a hotel and definitely NOT theirs to do with as they please. Especially with NO mention or approval from us. We probably would have given them approval for smaller things if they agreed to put them back, although we will never know for sure now.

I certainly thank you for your comments and knowing that there are other hosts out there that will listen and help is a great feeling for sure.

Kind regards

Dominic

[Lisa723]

@Dominic101 we had a very similar experience a couple of years ago. Very high-maintenance guests wanting to rebook for the following year. We waited for their review to post then told them we could not host them again. Regarding the moved furniture etc., yes it's annoying but unless anything is missing or damaged I don't think you'll get any reimbursement. Please follow @Corliss2 's advice re. reviewing them.

[Dominic101]

Hi Lisa...thank you kindly for your comments.

We are not trying to get any type of reimbursement (unless we can determine something is broken or missing). We have decided to wait as Corliss and you have suggested...who knows, after being so high maintenance and being so disappointed, they wanted to book again...maybe their review will not be as bad as we expect. We will wait until the very last moment and simply state...high maintenance, did not follow proper protocol, took advantage, and then left things rearranged and differently then found upon check in. I guess that will allow other hosts to determine if they wish to put up with that type of guest.

Thanks again for the support and comments.

Dominic and Ana

[Mark116]

@Dominic101  We also have in our house rules that there is no moving furniture. 

No one ever put stuff in the closet, LOL, but since we live upstairs we could hear people dragging the velvet dining chairs down the wood floor hallway to the kitchen!  So, we added that as a rule.  

[Dominic101]

Thank you Mark....we were beginning to think we were the only ones that found that behavior strange.

Appreciate the comments.

All the best

Dominic and Ana