A significant part of my story was censored.
Let's try again
Almost one year ago, we hosted 2 young travelers from China. They spent some months in the USA studying and were now finishing their visit with travels around several cities in the USA. Guests booked a 2 night stay, had few reviews and none from home share but we had great experiences with other students from China so we accepted the request. Before anyone books a room with us, we request that they read the House Decription and Rules BEFORE they book the room. And, although it is clearly stated that there is a cat in the house, we still remind guests during the inquiry stage.
The young women arrived late a night, past 11pm. They were greeted with refreshments and snacks and given a quick tour and introduction to the space, a walk thru with reminders of some of our requests of guests. They asked if there was a washing machine on the premise. There is. On that same night while turning off lights in the apt, I saw one of the women shooing my cat out of the apt. I did not say anything then as I thought maybe she was tired and not thinking straight.
Next day, I was called down by the main host. The women decided to hand wash a lot of their travel clothes. They were, as are all guests, specifically asked not to hang wet clothes in the bathroom or on any of the furniture in the apt and were shoppwn where wet clothes can be hung outside in the fenced in garden area. Suri, the guest who booked the room, respected our guest but her friend ignored our instruction and request. Hence, the bathroom floor was flooded with water. The two rugs were completed drenced and there were still puddles. Suri was apologetic, her friend not at all. Suri respected our instructions, her friend did not. We cleaned up ythe rugs but asked Suri and her friend to finish wiping up the rest of the water before they went out for the nuight Her friend started to yell in Mandarin and Suri translated that her friend insists that they should not be asked to clean as they paid a cleaning fee. I explained the notion of the cleaning fee, and reminded them that that had been there less than 24 hours and we already had to clean the bathroom earlier because they somehow made it look like it hadn't been cleaned in 10 days and we up until hen said nothing about it. We figured, they are leaving the next day, anyway, so why bother?
I called Airbnb that night to express my concern about these girls general attitude and for a recommendation on how would I go about writing a review. It is not our custom to write negative reviews and we are reluctant to do so as it is considered rude to slight a guest in public. It is something we struggled with the last 2 years as we have noticed a stark change in the quility and mind set of guests, since we first joined 5 years ago. Since we did not feel threatened by the women, just appalled at how her friend yelled and gestured, including ramming into me as she left the room and we chatted..... we felt we can endure them for the little time they had left.
Suri's review gave less than 4 stars for cleanliness which was of course, not a truthful rating. But worse is that Suri wrote in her review that her friend asked her to include that along wih an unpleasant stay, our interaction indicated I am a racist. That is correct. Her friend decided to say a most provocative and insulting slander because she could, not because anything said or done gave the slightest indication that asking her to finish cleaning up the water was due to me or anyone here being a racist.
There women had less than 8 minutes of interaction with me in total. Neither ntionality nor race, nor religion factored into the request that they help to clean up the mess they created. We did not mention that in less than 24 hours, the bedroom looked as if they had stayed with us a week, the mirror was streaked with what looked like an oil stain, garbage was strewn everywhere, yet we said nothing about that. All we asked was that they finish cleaning up with puddles in the corner after they finished using the bathroom as a wash room. The woman was asked to remove her dripping wet clothes from the bathroom and hang it outdoors.
False statements of fact that harm the reputation of an individual or business aren't protected under Constitutional Free Speech provisions. Slander is subject to possible recourse. And yet, here we are 11 months and many calls to the call center, over 12 reps from the call center agree that based on our history and previous reviews from people from all over the world, including other visitors from China, and the way the review was written, seemed to indicate the review was based on emotion and untruths, meant to hurt thehost who insisted that a cleaning fee does not cover us having to clean up a mess we deem they should help to clean up.
Some of the reps from the Phillipines have been so adamant that they believe this review was written by misguided woman, out to make a nasty and petty point that they will get back at the host, that they have opened the case countless times. And yet, there it is.
Naturally, this opend our eyes to the possibility that guests can make any claim they want, out of spite or to get a refund. It has made us realize that we really must vet even more carefully than we were. Calling someone a racist without any actual experience or hint of racism experienced menas that a guest can claim we are thieves, if they lose something but claim it was lost in our home, or that we are ageist, or worse things.
We decline more requests than ever, mainly because so many people ask us to receive payment off of the grid or ask us to contact them out of the grid or they have no photos and nothing written on their profile to give us an idea of who they are. Airbnb then deactivates our account for 5 days with a lecture about the amount of declines we made. When we point out the reasons we declined the inappropriate requests, we were told, "you are right let me see what i can do" and yet the ad was kept deactivated for 5 days.
It seems we are not the only host experiencing retaliation for simply asking guests to respect the house rules and culture. That is sad.