Hi all,
I recently had to write my first negative review for a guest. I honestly never wanted to have to do this, and struggled with the decision because the guest was a fellow host and did communicate well.
I will I’ll try to make this as short as possible.
Basically the guest (group) did not follow any of our check-out instructions, and the opposite of what we asked was done. I always let our guests know where to find our check out policy and ask them to please look it over.
We ask for guests to place used towels in the hamper, the used towels were left on the couch.
We ask guests to take out their garbage and recycling, there were piles of boxes and garbage left in our kitchen.
We ask guests to leave the AC and fans running, everything was turned off.
I could go on and on but I will spare you the rest.
The guest also had an extra person stay. Our house is small and we make it very clear that we have a 4 person max, and local laws only allow 2 people per bedroom. The guest did not mention anything about having 1 more person, which made me feel as though it was being hidden from me. If they would have asked, I probably would have said no problem since it was a 1 night stay.
Review time comes and I decide to wait to review. After thinking it though all day I decided to leave the review I believe was warranted.
I basically said that I expected a lot more from our guest because they were a fellow host but was shocked because they failed to do any of what we ask. I also said I was mostly disappointed in what appeared to be the lack of respect for our home, and that I was just honestly bummed.
Our guest sees the review and is very mad because they do not feel like they did anything wrong. They basically gave excuses like “what’s the cleaning fee for” and “how do you expect me to remember to read the check out policy from a message you send a few days before our stay”
Now I am feeling guilty, like I did something wrong. I never wanted to have to write a negative review for our guests, especially to another host. But I do believe that the condition our house was left in warranted it.
Also now the guest won’t stop messaging me about it.
Has anyone dealt with something similar? I hate feeling guilty about this!