Leaving a bad revue for a past guest

[Bernard1000]

Hi all, we had a family stay with their dogs. We allow pets on the understanding that they do not go in the bedrooms for allergy reasons.
When they left we found that the dogs had urinated on the bedspreads and left a lot of dog mess in the garden.
The family had spilt curry on our 6 months old fitted carpets in three places and then used four John Lewis towels to clear it up, but the carpet is stained and the towels ruined. Our house was left in a complete mess (9 bags of rubbish).
The man lives fairly locally and when challenged he both lied and became aggressive, only admitting the curry stains.

My question to you good people is, how do I leave a bad revue to flag him up to others without him coming back?
and, can I apply for damages through Airbnb?

I nearly got him to pay £65 for the carpet to be cleaned but that text messaging conversation dried up at the point of payment.

I am at the point of just accepting that some others do not respect other people’s property

but I do feel I need to flag up this particular individual and his family.

[Huma0 · Accepted solution]

Hello @Bernard1000 

It seems that you are a fairly new host? You have great reviews so clearly you are on the right track!

Sorry that you have had this bad experience.

In answer to your questions:

- Yes, please do leave an honest review for this guest to warn other hosts. Perhaps it will also improve his behaviour next time, but there's no guarantee of that! Keep it brief, factual and unemotional.

As the review process is a blind one (i.e. the guest cannot see your review before they write theirs or until the deadline is up and they can no longer write one), writing an honest review will not affect the review he writes for you. He is either already planning to write a bad review or not. Maybe he will leave no review at all (I often find that bad guests don't). So that you don't prompt him to leave a review, you could wait until right before the cut off time (two weeks from check out) to leave yours.

The guest can respond to your negative review, but this will only show up on their profile so it doesn't really affect you too much unless potential guests are really doing their research, which is rare.

Likewise, you can respond to his review if he leaves a bad one and this is more important as it will appear on your profile. Again, keep the response factual and impersonal.

- Yes, you can apply for damages through Airbnb. See: https://www.airbnb.co.uk/help/article/279/host-damage-protection

Make sure you take plenty of photos/videos as evidence if you haven't already done so before cleaning up the mess. It's a good idea also to have receipts for any items that need replacing and quotes/invoices for replacement items/extra cleaning services and so on, as you may be asked for these.

A guest is more likely to leave a bad review if you have asked them to pay for damages, but as you have already had the discussion with the guest, he is likely to do that anyway.

You mentioned 'text messaging'. I am not sure if you meant texts or the Airbnb messaging system. Do always try to keep correspondence with the guest on the Airbnb system as this is important evidence should there be a dispute/claim. If you were texting, make sure you keep those as records.

Also, can I ask why this local person booked your Airbnb for himself and his family?

[Bernard1000]

Thank you all for your helpful advice, I have not been back in contact as I was in negoiation with the client. I have managed to get him to pay some money for the damages. I think this happened because I kept my cool and was not judgemental towards him and his family. Needless to say we have found more damage since the original assesment.

I am going to put this one down to experience and will now always go by my gut feeling and not my wallet.

Thank you all

regards Bernard