BAD PETS/BAD OWNERS

Anna386
Level 1
Seattle, WA

BAD PETS/BAD OWNERS

Hello,

I recently accepted a guest request who had 2 small dogs.  I was uaware the 'pets ok' tab had been on 'yes'.  I mentioned to the guest this tab was an error, but would consider the dogs as long as he could assure me these dogs were house broken and well behaved.  Natrually he agreed there would be no issue and these dogs travel with them everywhere.

 

They checked out this morning and when I went to the unit to start the clean up effort,  I found a pig pile of 'well behaved' on my 'shag' rug.

 

DISGUSTING.

 

I reached out to the guest with a photo of the 'well behaved' gift the dogs left with no response.  Now I see he's left a review.  I'm assuming it will be negative which will absolutely send me into orbit.

 

I need to get the rug cleand which I will submit a receipt to the guest.  My questions is, how to deal with is assuridly a negative review waiting for me.  I take much pride in keeping my units CLEAN and well appointed.  I've been doing this for almost 3 years and have never had this situation.  Naturally, after this experience I will never allow pets again, knowing this kind of situation can happen.  I have stellar reviews and do not want this experience to set a negative tone for other guests.

 

Any suggestions?

 

Thanks,

Anna

3 Replies 3

You don't "know" that the review is bad - so before you make yourself crazy about it, write your own, well-measured review including allowing dogs who were unfortunately not housebroken. (Please mark them as thumbs down and lower their scores for House Rules and Communication so it becomes more difficult for them to IB with other hosts).  There is a lot of advice in these threads about how to write a review where bad news gets delivered. Please review the conversations here in the forums for how to do this well. Then, if they have gone off the rails with their own review, write a careful and thoughtful response. Again, search the threads here for how to do this so you do not come off as snarky, bitter or, worse, drawing more attention to the one bad review in a sea of good ones.  

 

Annette33
Level 10
Prescott, AZ

So sorry this has happened to you and your place, but please, don't go off into orbit, regardless of how this guest has reviewed you or is dealing with you! Just not worth it to hook into it.
You have sent this guest a pic of the dog's mess: no answer. That tells you already that certainly he will not answer either when you submit a cleaning bill to him. So save yourself the aggravation , don't engage into a cat fight (sic) with him, instead collect all evidence - I hope all correspondance about assuring you the dogs would not make a mess  were done on Airbnb messaging - and asap go straight to Airbnb and request a payment from the $250 security deposit you have in place. That will hopefully get you results.  Great that you have changed your pet policy immediately, so it won't happen again!

Re the review you are dreading: I love what @Alice-and-Jeff0 advised you. Also, I would wait a day before posting your answer, cool off and stay calm! I see that under one short and pleasant review you got from a guest in Oct. you posted in your answer something about a refrigerator issue: the guest didn't mention anything about that in his review, so my advice is to not bring things into the public conversation that are not even mentioned by the guest, you can always do that in a private message to the guest. Why draw attention to something that future guests know nothing about? Keep that in mind when posting your public answer to this guest's review...

Good luck and happy hosting in the future!

Babs0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

Well spotted, @Annette33! I think the guest was courteous and left it in the private message to the host, indeed better not to mention it in a public reponse. @Anna386, I'm afraid you can't delete that, but in time it will go down and not get noticed