Warning: incoming rant.
When a guest stays with us in our cottage, I do a walk through of the cottage, showing them certain things like, where the spare blankets are etc. At the end of this, I repeat that we are just next door if they need us, and that we ware also contactable via text or phone. So then this...
AirBnB kindly shared the following with me from a guest that stayed with us recently...
Your guest mentioned some issues that weren’t accurately reflected in your listing description: wifi.
I state quite clearly that there IS no wifi, as we have next to no reception. We'd like to provide it, but we live in the country and even though we have NBN, our reception is dodgy at the best of times - So there's no way I'm going to offer to provide a service that I know wont perform.
Additional comments:
1) Circuit Breaker on Aircond.
Well, things break down. Did they notify us? No. So how were we to know?
2) Lack of firewood for fire ... had to scrape what we could find so restricted use so as morning we had a fire.
Once again, it states quite clearly in the house manual that there is a bin with firewood downstairs under the house should they have the need. Did they use any of this wood? No. The scraping of firewood that they mentioned was wood they took from the outside firepit. I still can't believe that they didn't use the wood under the house. There was HEAPS.
3) Ran out of dish washing liquid not much in container to begin with.
That's right. That's why there was a brand new, full unopened bottle right behind the nearly empty one. (I now remove 'nearly empty' containers and put them under the laundry sink as back up.)
4) Came home 10pm Sun night outside light.
I think they mean that there was no outside light. There is one. It's an outside sensor light. The switch for this is right by the front door. IF they knew they were coming home in the dark, why the heck didn't they switch it on? I would have switched it on as it's also the verandah and stairs light, and if I was coming home in the dark I would have at least switched this on so I could see the stairs and the front door. The sensors light is hard wired into the verandah light and would have come on automatically. They may not have seen the sensor light, but it would have come on.
What really ticks my tonsils off about all of this though, is why they didn't text or ring me. Heck, we are right next door! Why didn't they knock on the door and ASK.
It gets cold here at night (like really, really cold) and first thing in the morning is no picnic. It's why we have reverse-cycle air conditioning, and also why we have oil column heaters in each bedroom as well as the combustion fireplace. We know that not everyone can use a fireplace or likes the idea (even though it's completely safe if used properly) of having a fire going at night whilst they sleep. So we make sure that we have all the angles covered. We even have extra blankets and hot water bottles (water bottles that have never yet been used) in the cupboard ready should a guest feel the need. The very idea that our guests were cold is totally abhorrent to me. I feel just awful for them. But again, why oh why didn't they contact me?
Further, now AirBnB think that my 'accuracy' is lacking.
It's like the time a guest told me as they were leaving after a four night stay, "we really loved staying here, but it would have been nice if you had supplied tea-towels." I replied with a very noncommittal response at the time, completely stunned, along the lines of..."oh thank you, we'll fix that immediately." The third drawer down in the kitchen was FULL of tea and hand towels. So because of this, instead of just leaving them in the drawer, I now put one of each, out in plain sight.
Or the time that I was told that a few kitchen utensils would have been handy. I hadn't realised that the guest before had cleaned out the second drawer of most of the kitchen utensils (they were in a caravan and wanted to stay in a 'proper house' for the night) and I believe a blanket. Because of that little incident, I now go through every drawer and cupboard between guests and double-check everything.
Don't get me wrong, I'm grateful to AirBnB for actually letting me know about the 'inaccuracy' of my listing. Because if any of this was justifiable, I could simply address the issue/s.
Thing that gets me is, how do you fix something that isn't broken in the first place? If anyone out there has any ideas on how to overcome this sort of silliness, I would be most grateful to you if you would share.
Okay, rant over.This is our listing. If anyone can see how to overcome the 'issues' that I've listed here in a bette...
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