Guest on trip not responding to messages

[Mashal0]

Hello,

I'm fairly new to hosting and have been traveling with my family for some time so decided to put our house up on Airbnb to help cover the mortgage while away. I got a lockbox and managed to get a friend to take care of preparing the home in between guests and be the local point of contact.

I have a guest that has rented the property for 9 days to host their family members visiting from abroad. We have a basement unit with a separate entrance and had a few contractors finishing up some work in there during the guest's booking so I messaged them a couple of days ahead to let them know there would be some work happening in the basement. On checkin day, the guest was furious and said that they didn't want any contractors there as they had young children. I found the tone of their messages very cold and inflexible. Being so far away and having a new listing, I didn't want to upset them and get a bad review so I agreed and asked my contractors to hold off on the work. I messaged the guest to inform them and didn't get a response from the guest, no acknowledgement, thank you, nothing. I waited a couple of days and sent a note to ask if everything was ok, nothing again... they are checking out on Sunday so I sent checkout details on Friday morning with a follow up message asking them to acknowledge they received the previous message. Still nothing.

Should I be worried?

[Debbie106]

you have access to their phone number, try calling them.  

Also, if you have a friend available to prep you might ask them to stop by to check on things explaining you were concerned that you didnt get a reply and wanted to check to make sure they were satisfied.  I work with international people all the time and other cultures can come across as abrupt but they do not think so, they are just very direct.  I know you are nervous about it being your first time but usually its a good experience.  I would suggest to find a way to make sure people give you their i.d.'s also - usually done at check in but if you are not there perhaps your friend can check them in.  This is good for many reasons.  you want to make sure that it is not a 3rd party booking, that extra people dont show up too, etc.

[Mashal0]

Thenka for the response Debbie, it did give me some peace of mind. The booking turned out good, with no issues.

[Rene-and-Zac0]

@Mashal0 I've only been hosting since April 2017, so I understand the anxiety. I always ask my guest to text me when they arrive, some do, some don't. I was having some upgrades done on our pool and we had a contractor working the day of an international guest arrival. The crew was wrapping things up but I thought I'd message the guest and tell them that "maybe they would see a work crew" the next day if they had to come back. All the work was outside of the house in the backyard. All hell broke loose over the phone. The guest landed into me saying things like "why didn't you schedule the work another day?" And finally I just had it and said "you can always cancel" and it all stopped. I had to reschedule some work that cost me $350 and it meant the guest would have no pool heater but that's what they wanted.....