How to deal with an aggressive guest?

[Stuart26]

After our last guest left our apartment I noticed our bottle of Saumur Brut which we put in storage, plus a fair amount (30cl) of Strathisla 12 year old malt whiskey and a bottle of red wine had all been drunk with no note or apology! In fact the Saumaur Brut was still in its red bottle-cover so some of the last remaining wine spilt as I extracted it from the storage.

Naturally I claimed on the Resolution Center for the cost of replacing the drink. A few hours later after claiming for the loss, the guest started calling me repeatedly so I decided to answer at which point he abused me verbally . He followed up the next day with a more polite text asking to meet which I didn't respond to, not surprisingly!

My question is (1) whether people think it's worth me dropping the claim if he decides to oppose the damages claim in the Resolution Center for the sake of keeping the peace? Should I also (2) avoid leaving a review, as I am worried he will turn aggressive again if I write what happened?

Thanks in advance for your practical suggestions.

[Sandra856]

Hi @Stuart26  🙂

I just got a notification email from airbnb about an hour ago with a respond from you but when I tried to enter the link via the email I got a "link doesn't work". I had to search in the community in order to find this thread again and I can see your reply is missing. I don't know what went wrong but I will copy past your message here :

Re: How to deal with an aggressive guest?

@Sandra I decided to leave a short polite public review, thanking the guest for their stay in the public review, and noting the claim in the Resolution Center in the private note.  In return the guest repeated their denial they had drunk the beverages, and added further criticism!   "The only issue you will have if you stay here is Stuart. Expect a long winded check in process which will include having you walked around the apartment with him going into every detail of every little thing including how to work a microwave, how to work a portable heater and a few other bits that I can't even remember now as I just switched off due to his patronising manner. Then to top it off after I checked out I receive a message from him requesting £26 for apparently drinking his red wine, white wine and some whiskey he had in storage. I don't even like wine or whiskey and during my 5 week stay I didn't even see the bottles! It's a real shame because the apartment itself is fantastic but this was let down by Stuart accusing me of theft."  My published response: "Thanks for your feedback, which will be used to improve the guest experience at the Cotton Mill." As a result of the negative review I also received an email from Airbnb with the following advice: "We noticed that you received a lower rating than usual for a recent stay at The lovely historic Cotton Mill . We know you’re putting a lot of thought and care into hosting and that sometimes low reviews happen to great hosts. While 3.7 stars might seem high, this recent drop in your listing’s overall rating brings it near the lowest 10% of listings globally." So if I had avoided leaving a review the guest may not have bothered giving me a negative rating in response.  I did receive the £26 I claimed for the damage, to conclude!

[Stuart26]

Thanks @Sandra856 !

[Sandra856]

Hi @Stuart26 🙂 

I'm really sorry for the low star rating he gave you!

I'm not sure if you are aware that the guest cannot read your review before after he has written one himself?

It is almost certain that a guest will leave you a bad review if you claim money. And he will probably also assume that you will leave him a bad review and it will make him leave an even worse review. 

Unless it is something expensive I don't think I would claim anything but then instead mention in the review "whatever was wrong". 

Some of the hosts in here are so incredible good at making perfect responses to a bad review. 

I'm not, I'm afraid. Hopefully there won't be a next time but if it should ever happen then ask. 

Another little trick is if the guest didn't leave you a review and you want to leave him a bad one do it on the very last day (day 14). That way he might not notice and have time to write a review before it is to late. I'm really sorry if I gave you some advice that wasn't detailed enough because there is a lot of small little tricks a host can use. 

Airbnb really makes it hard to claim anything if a guest steals from us or are just breaking the houserules. Because the guests will then fire back and destroy our ratings!!

[Sandra856]

@Stuart26  Did you leave your review before your guest did?

[Stuart26]

@Sandra0I left a review before the guest. I kept my review neutral in anticipation of the fact I would get a negative response. I then had the option to respond to their review. I kept that response neutral too. In this way I rejected advice from others in this dicussion thread to let others know what the guest was like, knowing that it would simply make things even worst. I sought to prove my hunch by leaving a neutral short review, and a similar response.

[Sandra856]

@Stuart26  The trick is to never ever leave a review if the guest didn't leave one first. Maybe he then won't leave you a review.

When you leave a review he gets a notification that you left a review. In this case he probably assumed you gave him a bad one. 

If a host in any way expects that a guest might leave a bad review we leave it till the very last minute of the 14 day review period that way the guests got very little time to leave one. 

It works very well.

You should of course do as you like but I feel it is my duty to warn future hosts of bad guests. I have learned a lot of tricks in this community on how to avoid bad reviews. 

[Stuart26]

Thanks for the review tip @Sandra856 much appreciated. 

[Stuart26]

@Sandra856 I decided to leave a short polite public review, thanking the guest for their stay in the public review, and noting the claim in the Resolution Center in the private note. 

In return the guest repeated their denial they had drunk the beverages, and added further criticism!  

"The only issue you will have if you stay here is Stuart. Expect a long winded check in process which will include having you walked around the apartment with him going into every detail of every little thing including how to work a microwave, how to work a portable heater and a few other bits that I can't even remember now as I just switched off due to his patronising manner. Then to top it off after I checked out I receive a message from him requesting £26 for apparently drinking his red wine, white wine and some whiskey he had in storage. I don't even like wine or whiskey and during my 5 week stay I didn't even see the bottles! It's a real shame because the apartment itself is fantastic but this was let down by Stuart accusing me of theft." 

My published response: "Thanks for your feedback, which will be used to improve the guest experience at the Cotton Mill."

As a result of the negative review I also received an email from Airbnb with the following advice: "We noticed that you received a lower rating than usual for a recent stay at The lovely historic Cotton Mill . We know you’re putting a lot of thought and care into hosting and that sometimes low reviews happen to great hosts. While 3.7 stars might seem high, this recent drop in your listing’s overall rating brings it near the lowest 10% of listings globally." To ask a rhetorical question, so if I had avoided leaving a review the guest may not have bothered giving me a negative rating in response? I a still glad I bothered to make a review. But also glad I held back from any criticism in anticipation of even greater criticism in response.

I did receive the £26 I claimed for the damage, to conclude. Which I plan to buy a coffee grinder with for future guest to enjoy!

[Carol777]

I have a storage closet in my rental unit but it’s locked.  I suggest you find a way to lock up anything you don’t want your guests to use.  I tell my guests if the find anything around they want to eat or drink they are welcome to it but of course I don’t expect them to get into a locked closet.

[Stuart26]

@Carol777 thanks for the locker tip. The wardrobe where we 'hide' the drink has a lock on it, with the key given to guests who have children, so they can keep their personal items safe.

And we have moved the drink to a safe location, along with my push scooter:-)