How to deal with a complaining guest ?

[Marie363]

Hello I am looking for clarification and suggestions regarding a complaining guest.

I have a house that I have rented out for holiday accomodation for the past 7 years - the last 3 via AirBnB and hold a very good level of review and rating.

I currently have a guest with his wife and 2 children who have been very interesting since the first evening and having a 10 day stay.

The first evening he requesting fans be provided even though the house is air conditioned.

Since then he has complained about the clean state of the house bedside draws and the pantry, garbage being in the kitchen bin and dirty dishes being in the dishwasher, whilst declining my offer to have the cleaner go through and rectify any of his concerns. I might add that I was the last person to stay there and cleaned the house prior to the professional cleaner coming through before him arriving and knowing that these complaints are definitely not true.

He has since complained about the number of power points in the house, the lack of a bedside reading lamp, the BBQ being "third world", no hanging racks in bedrooms despite there being hanging ladders in each bedroom, sand on the lounge, the number of teaspoons being inadequate and the cutlery being "really awful".

He decided that the first morning he would decline my putting the cleaner through to adjust to his concerns, whilst now stating that his wife spent the day cleaning to his accepatble level and decided that he wanted to seek alternative accomodation. At that point despite a zero refund policy I suggested I would come to some type of refund to allow him to relocate out of my house. His ultimate answer was that nothing else was available. This was not correct and I did a search on AirBnB locally to find there was a reasonable number of options available but at a lesser standard of accomodation, further away from the beach and at a higher price.

So I get to have him stay for the complete 10 days.

I have provided room fans, further bed lights, a new BBQ, more teaspoons, a bottle of wine among a few things to hopefully improve his stay. I have also offered the initial clean to rectify his concerns which he declined and the usual house service after 6 nights for those staying longer than a week - to which he stated they have already laundered the linen themselves and declined the house service.

Despite all of this he is seeking and repeatedly messaging me for a significant refund ...........

I have tried to remain calm but I would love to hear of other hosts suggestions or comments and where perhaps AirBnB might sit with this type of guest experience.

[Maria-Lurdes0]

Hi @Marie363  if your conversations aren't already in the airbnb message thread, then go now into the message thread and reiterate all of the solutions you've tried to put in place.

Something like "as we discussed yesterday, I have offered to send the cleaner over to clean the sand in the living room and to replace the cutlery" and then "as discussed earlier I have offered you a full refund on unused nights as you've indicated that you prefer to find another place to stay" , on and on.  

The very first thing that airbnb will do if the guest complains is to look at your message thread with the guest.  They may never call you to discuss, they may simply talk to the guest and say "yup, you're right, you can have all of your money back, even after you've stayed ten days"

The guest is being an ass, and I would really look for some house rule that may have been broken in order to get HIM out, as in YOU making him leave.  You can call Airbnb and say "look, the guest is making me uncomfortable and he's not allowing me to address his complaints therefore I want your help in re-housing him, and I will refund his unused nights".   Honestly, if he's going to be a real jerk you might consider taking the penalties and just cancelling him outright.  It depends on your level of patience with the situation.

BUt he's showing you his true colors, don't have any hope that it will get better.  He's a chronic complainer and nothing that you do will be enough.  I've had guests like that, and I've learned my lesson.

Good luck to you.