Should I respond to a negative review by a host

Should I respond to a negative review by a host

After years of using AirBNB as a guest, I have got my first bad review. It was quite a weird, though not a horror situation. The host didn't have a house key, and we had to leave our belongings in an unlocked house while sightseeing. She snooped around our things and took / threw away some of our empty plastic bags (which we did need for packing). However, I didn't mention any of it in my review, and I'll explain why. I apologise for a long post, but I believe I need to mention how many times during our stay we communicated, without her mentioning any of the problems she had with us.

 

I do have other good reviews, and her review didn't prevent me from instabooking another stay and getting a good review, but I still wonder if I should reply, while I still can. I had added my boyfriend as another guest, so he is more concerned about the negative review on his profile.

 

We had booked 2 nights in Bergen (Fana), Norway, the entire flat, separated from another flat in the house, in which the host lived, by a corridor. There was one house rule written in Dutch: "Schoenen uit in huis" - "Shoes off in the house". Although it was neither in English, nor in Norwegian, I understood it because I had learned some Dutch on Duolingo (many other guests probably wouldn't understand it). We communicated in English. We agreed on our time of arrival 2 days before our stay, and confirmed several times during the day of our arrival, but the host texted us that she had got unexpected other guests, so she would leave the place unlocked and come later. We arrived, found the place unlocked with a message on the door, let ourselves in and left the shoes outside of the house. When she arrived she seemed friendly and everything seemed OK. She brought us a bottle of cold Soda Stream water and said it was because the fridge in our flat didn't work, and she didn't know why. We later turned it on and it worked  just fine.

 

My boyfriend made a mistake of asking for the wifi password when wifi wasn't listed on the page. She said she didn't know the password, gave us the default password from the router, but it didn't work, then said she would text her husband and ask him, but by the end of our stay he hasn't responded. It was no problem, we just used our mobile plan.

 

She knocked several times to ask us about our travelling, sightseeing, when we wanted coffee in the morning, etc. She did bring coffee and buns in the morning (the listing says there's breakfast), but my boyfriend was the only one who drank/ate them. There was no dishwashing liquid or sponge, we had our own, but we didn't wash the dishes from the breakfast, because there was a cleaning fee and no cleaning supplies.

 

The first day when it was time for sightseeing she wasn't around, so I texted her that we would need the key to lock up our belongings and to be able to return to the flat later. She came outside from the house, barefoot, and said she didn't have the house key, but "This is Norway, nobody steals here." She said that her husband took the house key to France, and she didn't have the flat key, she only had the key for her own flat, which is the same as for our flat, but she couldn't give us that key, because if she didn't lock up her flat her insurance wouldn't be valid. Then she repeated "But, this is Norway". I forgot to ask her why she needed the insurance when "this is Norway". She asked if she could take the breakfast dishes and we said yes, and asked her to hide the laptop, so that it wouldn't be visible from the outside. Then she asked if we knew how to get to the light rail, and came barefoot to the road to show us. I asked if she wasn't cold, and she said the asphalt was warm (the air temperature was 16 Celsius). I genuinely felt sorry for her at that point.

 

When we returned we saw that she had also hidden our backpacks which we thought was OK. Nothing seemed to be missing. She knocked again to ask about our sightseeing, we talked a bit about where we'd been. She asked if we had liked the breakfast, I said only boyfriend had had breakfast because I'm vegan and don't drink coffee, but he had liked it (I didn't expect her to accommodate me). She said she had bought the same buns for the next morning. It was no problem, boyfriend ate both buns again.

 

When we needed to pack we discovered 2 plastic bags missing. We managed without them. She had provided no separate bins for recycling, but we have put plastic waste into one of our plastic bags, and papers into a cereal box (and the rest into her bathroom bin). We didn't have any food waste. We turned off the fridge, tidied up as much as we could without cleaning supplies, and put our baggage in the car. Then I waved to her through the window, she came outside, I said "Thank you for a wonderful stay" (which I meant, the flat, and the neighbourhood were nice). She asked if I had any tips, and I said that everything was fine. I didn't want to mention the house key again, because I expected her husband to return it before anyone else would notice, and she knew she needed to have it. We shook hands, and my boyfriend and I left.

 

Two days later I left a review in which I didn't mention the lack of house key and throwing away our things, because I felt sorry for her. I wrote objectively: "We had a great stay in beautiful Fana neighbourhood. Joyce was very welcoming and helped us with tourist tips. The flat is spacious, light, and stylish, and just a few minutes from light rail station."

 

Then I was able to read her review: "Sorry to inform that I do not recommend this guest pga. long showers (20 minutes is too long for a shower) and a strong perfume or toilet spray scent in the place after departure."

 

https://www.airbnb.com/users/show/23876999

 

"pga." means "because of" in Norwegian. The only longer shower was me on the first morning, because that was the day when I needed to wash my hair (I need to let the shampoo stay in my hair, but I don't run the shower the whole time). The next morning it lasted for 5 minutes. My boyfriend washes his hair every day, but it is short, so it couldn't have lasted more than 10 minutes each time. Since it was a private bathroom, I assumed the cost was a problem. It did seem like the money was tight, so I thought about sending her money for our water usage via AirBNB. I checked the prices of water in Bergen, used the worst possible scenario (she had a water saving shower Gustav Berg, but I used the most wasteful figure I could find, and assumed 4 showers, 20 min each), and it still turned out to cost around 3 USD. Taking Norwegian prices into account, transferring such an amount could only offend her.

 

We hadn't brought either perfume or eau de toilette on the trip, but I guess the deodorant bothered her. Had she mentioned her scent sensitivity, we could have applied it outside. After she left us a bad review, she did add another house rule, again in Dutch: "Geen parfum of sterk geurende toiletartikelen te gebruiken." I guess she was afraid that we would leave her a bad review because of the lack of the house key, so she wanted some kind of a leverage. She also left a bad review to her other guests in August, that some of them left a smell of garlic, and that one didn't sort waste (that one she wrote in Dutch). Some days later, she added another house rule: "Geen rolkoffers in de woonkamer rollen".

 

And then, she delisted the property entirely. I can still see it when logged in, but it could be because I have stayed there: https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/37244718

 

My boyfriend thinks I need to at least mention that the bathroom was private. Do I need to write a reply, and if so, what, out of everything in this post, should I write? I wouldn't want for the reply to be too long.

7 Replies 7
Sarah977
Level 10
Sayulita, Mexico

@Enola2  You sound like the kind of guests that every host would be happy to have. This woman sounds a little "off", although the barefoot thing may just be her preference.

I do think it might be a good idea to leave a response, since she indicates that you were undesireable guests, which seems to me to be quite far from the truth.

Maybe something like "I'm quite sorry that this host felt that we were not good guests, as we are always quite respectful of the places we stay, as is evident from our other reviews. There were several odd issues during our stay, which we made the best of at the time, and didn't mention in the review. I would suggest that this host make clear the things that would bother her, like cosmetic scents (we only used deoderant, nothing else) and the length of showers she expects (we never were in the shower longer than 10 minutes), so that guests can be afforded the opportunity to comply, rather than have it not mentioned on arrival or during the stay, and then leaving a bad review for guests who aren't mind-readers."

I'm very glad that her review didn't affect you getting future bookings declined.

Lisa723
Level 10
Quilcene, WA

@Enola2 personally I would not respond. She looks like a lunatic, especially with all your other good reviews. As a host, I wouldn't put any weight on that review. And I wouldn't care about your issues with her, since I wouldn't be thinking of staying at her place. But if you do respond I would just say "We'd like to assure other hosts that we did not take 20-minute showers (in this private space) or wear scents. But had this host let us know of her concerns during our stay, we would of course have worked with her to address them."

Emiel1
Level 10
Leeuwarden, The Netherlands

@Enola2 

Did you read the comment from the guest which was provided with the "garlic" review ?

I think you should not mention the other issues in your comment (the review about the host is the place for that, but is closed case already). Just comment short on the 2 issues  (my english is not good enough to provide exact words...):making it clear in a polite way you do not recognize yourself in the critics.

Maybe she is originally Dutch. We are weird people !

Best regards,

Emiel

 

 

@Emiel1  Glad to hear a Dutchman say that (anyone else would be accused of discrimination). I was married to one for many years and have several other Dutch friends. Yes, odd and difficult in some ways, but all I've known are quite forthcoming with admitting it, I'd go so far as saying you all seem to take a bit of pride in it 🙂

Emiel1
Level 10
Leeuwarden, The Netherlands

@Sarah977 

You are probably familiar with the phrase "going Dutch" ?

We are scrooges ! And we do not even feel ashamed of it...

Good to hear about your Dutch connections !

@Emiel1  Oh yes. Ridiculously cheap. (I understand frugality, but it often borders on offensive, especially when the person in question isn't poor at all)

The other phrase I love, proudly told to me by Dutch- "You can always tell a Dutchman, but you can't tell him much" 🙂 

I do appreciate people who can laugh at themselves- it's becoming a frightening rarity in these days of political correctness and cries of "discrimination!"

Thank you all for your replies! You made me less worried about the impression the future hosts will get.

 

I decided not to respond because life got hectic (I was switching jobs), and composing a response would take additional time and energy. Also, it seemed a bit inconsistent to reply only to the negative review if I hadn't replied to positive ones as well in the past.

 

As for Dutch people, I've stayed with three lovely hosts in the Netherlands, and know some great people who live there. I refuse to believe that whatever was bothering my host from Fana is nationwide.