Is there anywhere to leave comments or information about a guests stay at our property without them seeing it? I ask because the guest was not particularly terrible, but I am sure there were more guests than they had confirmed. Our property is a cabin that is off the beaten path and we do have wildlife in the area. They left about 20 bags of trash overflowing out of the dumpsters and garbage cans (lots was alcohol bottles so clearly they had a party of some kind there), and were not considerate of other neighbors in the area. I got a message from a neighbor through the site to let me know that there were about 20 bags of trash left in our breezeway and he was concerned that it may attract wildlife and was also not sanitary. He then mentioned that the guests were driving ATV's up and down the roads and even off the road and did some damage to the gravel areas on our property. They also got in to the supply cabinet and used easily 4 or 5 times the amount of paper towels and toilet paper than another guest would have for a 3 night stay.
Our cleaning lady said the house was not left in terrible condition...nothing she couldn't clean up, but it was definitely left messier than any other time she has cleaned with stickiness all over the floor and counters (I assume from spilled alcohol, etc).
So the reason for my question is this: if I left a review stating this information, they could in turn leave a negative review out of spite even though they did not say anything to me about any issues with their stay. I realize this is something that many guests do. If we leave an honest review, we stand the risk of receiving a negative review in return even if the guest had no issues. Is there a place on the site that hosts can truly leave an honest review about a particular guest to avoid having the same issues at their property? Because the way it is now, I don't feel I can actually be honest. Help:/
Also, we did have a guest after one stay leave one of our white spa bath towels saturated in blood in the laundry room after their stay (we can only assume that it was possibly used to wipe out an ice chest that had blood from meat that dripped?). Our cleaning lady could not get to our cabin to clean it immediately after the stay (it was about 2 days later) and she informed me that the smell was terrible when she got inside and she found the bloody towel in the laundry room which was the culprit of the bad smell. She said it was not salvageable and I chose to deduct $25 from the guests deposit and explained through messages on the site that I had to do that to replace the towel. While I had been in contact with this guest previous to their stay, and also via text upon their arrival, they said absolutely nothing about any issues with the cabin when they arrived or during their stay. Once I let them know I was going to deduct the $25 from their deposit to replace the towel, suddenly she had several complaints. One was that the kitchen was left a mess and was not properly cleaned and that she and her daughter had to clean it properly. She then said that there was a terrible smell coming from the kitchen and she realized it was because there was rotting stuff in the garbage disposal. She also said that there was feces left in the upstairs toilet and that there was trash in the bathroom garbage cans.
I couldn't believe she was saying this. What she didn't realize was that I had been up to the property just a couple days before her stay (even though I live 4 1/2 hours away) and had inspected the house with our cleaning lady. I had checked EVERYTHING during that inspection as I always do. There was NOTHING of the sort that she had stated. Rather than argue with her I simply apologized and refunded the balance of her deposit. So I can definitely see how guests can leave negative reviews out of spite when they don't want to be responsible for themselves when it costs them money.
Any suggestions? Anyone else have issues like this? I would love to hear your input.
Also, I think that Airbnb needs to have a forum where hosts can honestly include input about a guest. We all need to protect our properties...and for us, even though they have the deposit and extra insurance policy, because the cabin is a bit remote it is very difficult to get people out to do repairs if there is something that was damaged. This is something else we now have to consider. I will need to now add that guests cannot use our cabin as a party house:/ Our neighbors had to deal with the issue and we weren't informed until after the fact...too late to do anything about it.
