Do other hosts seem to get a mixed bag of either lovely or ungrateful, overly demanding guests on the holidays? I am beginning to wonder if I am cursed with terrible, impossible-to-please guests on the holidays. I have awful New Years guests and today I feel sad and uncomfortable in my home... I worked an entire year to recover from last years entitled, winter holiday nasties. Dreading that my excellent rating will again be destroyed by another awful couple that should have stayed in a hotel or at home.
I don't want to sound ungreatful myself: Most of my guests are wonderful! Most follow basic etiquette (or are fair/apologetic when they do not). Most are extremely positive about the accommodation and the extra care they get, on top of a great deal of an entire, temporary home for the price of a single hotel room.
My last years New Years guests were snotty and entitled, but this years guests have topped them! There have been mishaps. (It’s a lot to maintain.) It’s tough for everyone on major holidays. The property is beautiful and beautifully furnished, but it is FAR from perfect. It is not a hotel (and not a hotel price either). Mishaps happen – especially at busy times. We are all human. Cannot get my head around ungracious people like this.
Unfortunately this year there was a last minute problem with the fridge thermostat not keeping a good enough temperature over the winter holidays…
These people were so rude and unthankful for my efforts to fix the problem. Nothing was enough. Not one ‘thank you’ or show of understanding. Even though I offered money off, as well as immediately working to provide a replacement fridge the same night (which I fully acknowledged was not ideal and apologies profusely for).
Even though I am a relatively small-framed female, it was too much to ask the husband for help bringing the replacement fridge inside. Even though the problem occurred over the Christmas/New Years season there was no allowances made. Even though I dealt with the matter that night, when I arrived (giving them my own fridge/freezer) I was snapped at that ‘it was a terrible time to come!’. Even though I had lugged such a heavy thing 3/4 of the way by myself and the husband is 30’something, again I was snapped at that the husband was busy and I should have found someone else to help me carry the heavy thing over the fence – yes at night in the countryside, just before New Years.
Maybe it’s shark mentality. You know, ‘blood in the water’? I have found that while some people will be satisfied when they are shown respect and remorse for a mistake (especially if they are given a monetary discount as well) others go for the throat.
QUESTIONS PLEASE:
1) Does anyone have any advice on how much money I should give off? I refunded the full cleaning fee to the people before.
2) I don’t feel comfortable leaving a neutral review for these ‘guests’. They were pretty awful about the fridge (And they were just generally charmless before the incident – not responding to my repeat messages requesting their ETA. Then being unfriendly when I arrived 20 minutes after they came. I had no idea when they would come and they had written instructions that they were free to enter the property and make themselves comfortable.)
STORY FOR THOSE WHO FEEL LIKE READING:
Guests before Christmas left the fridge it full of stuff and the door slightly open. With the heating on, after a week I guess it broke the thermostat. True, my fault for not noticing. We are all human. I wasn’t sure if it was broken, because I only found out 2 hours before the Christmas guests arrived. It is no surprise that I could neither get the fridge fixed, nor a new one delivered during this time… The Christmas guests said it wasn’t bad and left writing a lovely note thanking me for a “special and perfect Christmas”. The fridge unfortunately did stink of fish/meat after. So, I offered money-off to the pre-New Years back-to-back guests who came in between. They also said the issue wasn’t that bad… Regardless, I couldn’t get anything delivered, but was convinced the fridge was at an acceptable level (a part from it being freezing outside just in case.
So the New Years Guests…
It started with them not answering my repeated requests to give their arrival time. It’s not a big deal to me if people don’t answer straight away, but by 2pm they still hadn’t responded at all (check in is flexible after 3pm). They’ve booked 6 weeks before and I haven’t heard a thing from them since. In my limited 1.5 years experience people like this tend to show up between 8 and10 pm, but at this point I am not even sure if they are coming at all because there has been no contact.
Like most of us over the holidays I have back-to-backs. Like most of us, my interest is to make the property clean and comfortable. time is extremely tight – unless I didn’t actually clean everything thoroughly or maybe had a team of people. If I know guests are coming after 3pm, it gives me time to spend some extra effort doing extra nice things for them (flowers etc). This time I was spending extra time cleaning and deodorising the faulty fridge.
If I know they are coming at 3pm I stop at 2:30 so I can tidy up to be there to greet them, but I still hadn’t heard anything. At 2:50pm I finished cleaning, left the door unlocked, raced back to the main house to have a quick shower and dress. At 3pm I leave a final text saying I am occupied for the next 20 min, by the off chance they arrive, but say I will be over shortly. (It also says to go into the house and my listing and my more detailed instructions.) Simultaneously they text for the first time to say they will be there in 10 minutes.
I arrive at 3:20 as promised to stony faces from both of them. ???
I explain about the fridge, apologise, offer money off… It sounds like it isn’t really okay with them. The fridge is’t cold enough. So I say give me some time, that I have an old fridge but I’ll need to clean it and think where to put the thing so as not to inconvenience them further. They seem to accept the compromise.
I have a beautiful old Smeg fridge, and yet another, but both were really dirty and I wasn’t sure how well they worked. From their attitude, it was pretty obvious these were going to be difficult to please guests. Long story short: to avoid further problems I decided to give them my fridge. Large and kind of ugly, but at least I am sure it works.
I return to explain what’s happening and confirm if it is okay to come back a lot later - 2 hours maybe. I suggest to put the replacement fridge in the front room/dining room in an unused area. Okay, not ideal and it spoils the prettiness of the place, but this way they don’t need to go outside. Husband says fine.
Spend next 2 hours thoroughly cleaning and sanitising my fridge. Dismantle part of my kitchen and my old conservatory to get the thing out! Haul it through the sodden, Suffolk soil on my own in the dark… I am 5’6” – not tiny anymore, but not at all a big woman. It’s a BIG fridge. At the little fence that divides the two properties (about 3/4 of the way) I go to the guests’ entrance. Knock on the door. Nothing… Knock again. Wife comes out and snaps at me in a nasty tone =>
Wife: “Yes?!…
Me: “Please can Husband[name withheld] came and help me get the fridge in?”
Wife: “He’s putting the baby to bed!…You’ve come at a bad time! This is in fact the worst time you could have come!” (Still snapping in a very rude tone and I am just standing there totally gobsmacked by her attitude and tone of voice, which is close to yelling.)
Me: “Uhhhm, uhh, uhh. I am not sure what to do. Do you mean I should leave and come back later? Or… do you not want me to come back at all” (Not in a nasty tone, just bewildered and worried this is turning out as it has.)
Her: “Don’t you have someone to help you?!”
Me: (I’m thinking:…’Yes, sure I’ll just get that groundsman that works 24/7, for free and doesn’t take holidays off,’ but don’t say this.)
At this point I am so totally shocked by this woman’s lack of humanity, I mutter something about dealing with it myself (with no idea of how) and just walk away without continuing the conversation or trying to ameliorate the situation as I would normally.
Husband comes out a bit later to find me unsuccessfully trying to lever the fridge over the fence into a wheelbarrow in the dark. I am almost in tears at this point and mutter something like: “I just don’t understand [your attitude]. Sorry, I just don’t understand. Your stay is important to me. Don’t you see it is important to me? What else do you want me to do? I’m trying to fix the problem. I said I’d give you money off. I am sorry.”
Husband: shrugs and mutters something off-handedly like “It will be alright.”
We get the fridge in. Again I say I hope it is good enough and apologise yet again reminding him I will still take the money off. Again he kind of off-handedly just acknowledges that he has heard my words and at least they have a colder fridge now for their child’s food.
AND FINALLY
It’s a 175 year old house in the countryside. Things happen. You cannot just snap you fingers in the countryside – especially not on the busiest days of the year! If there ever is a problem, I always make amends by showing remorse and trying to fix it immediately. I always make it clear that I take their holiday seriously. I usually offer monetary compensation. From my experience this is above what a hotel might do in the same situation.
Most people know what they are getting with a B&B and even when things don’t go perfectly, the trade off of having a whole home for less than one room with bathroom in a hotel, plus amenities, plus personal service etc is more than enough. Honestly, I host because I NEED the money. But it is definitely not just the money; if it were I wouldn’t have the ‘cutsy’ type of accomodation that I have. (I definitely wouldn’t spend £200 per bed on sheets, when I know I could get the same rent on polycotton). It is so, so important to me that people have a lovely experience staying here.
I know I probably take it too seriously… Opffh it just really, really gets me down.
Really makes me want to stop hosting.