Nightmare Guest Gave Bad Review

[Michael341]

Just had about the worst experience ever with guest who promised to abide by guest limits and no parties policy and then trashed our house and turned it into a flophouse for twice as many guests as limit.  We caught all this via photos from the woman who was feeding our cats while they were there.  

We had some serious damage to the house including scratched walls, stains on carpet and couch, baby's crib was used to hold drugs and has stains through mattress, and towel rack broken off the wall.  

I told the guest about the damages and am trying to settle the situation with him, but he will not negotiate and left us a bad review.  Are there any options for a guest who does so much damage to get their review censored?  What are my options in writing a review of him?

thanks...

[David126]

How do you know what the review said?

[Michael341]

He paraphrased it in a message to me.

[Michael342]

I would ask Airbnb to max out the damage control amount to put the house back to normal.  If the amount us not enough, take him to small claims court.  You can't let that go!

[Regina38]

I would put all that in your review or see if airbnb can remove or flag the guest. I think I am raising my security deposit.

[Regina38]

I would put all that in your review or see if airbnb can remove or flag the guest. I think I am raising my security deposit.

[Lois-and-Darryl0]

If you don't post a review, then your Guest's review won't be posted.  Host and Guest must both post reviews for them to be published - and they're published at the same time, so you or he don't have the chance to review and then revise the review.  I recommend that you do NOT leave a review, so that regardless of what this awful Guest says, it will not be posted on your listing.  This is one area I've found that Airbnb is not overly helpful with - when a Guest damages your home.  Airbnb wants the Hosts to work with the Guest to get them to agree to pay for the damages.  That is somewhat nonsensical to me - as if the Guest cared to little about your home that they tore it up, then they certainly aren't going to agree to "make it right."  We had some serious damage to our home that we ended up "eating" because it wasn't high enough to meet our insurance deductible, and we were somewhat blown off by Airbnb, even though I had photographs.  I am trying to hone my instinct more.  Good luck.

[Michael341]

Very helpful. Won't write review at least for now. I partly want to warn others about him, so mulling over the consequences of that. Why did Airbnb blow you off?

[Andrew90]

@Michael341 I woudl confirm as I think that @Lois-and-Darryl0 may be mistaken.  I believe that if you dont' review than the guests posting will post automatically after 14 days. 

Here is example from thier listing

[Lois-and-Darryl0]

@Michael341@Andrew90:  YES!  I was mistaken and feel horrible about that.  I have studied the Airbnb website and all its rules for nearly a year while we prepared to list our home.  The correct review process:  If one of you (Guest or Host) does not post a review, but the other one does, that review will be made public after that 14 day review period.  

I wouldn't characterize Airbnb as "blowing me off" as much as leaving the responsibility of resolving conflicts with the Host.  They want you to take care of it yourself.  I can see their side of this issue - if they did that for all of us, then this process would have more conflict and be less streamlined.  Airbnb is growing so fast.  We are enjoying this business and we can fix pretty much anything - we don't have to hire out, so for the time being, we chose not to hang onto the bad crap that makes us feel bad and be mad all day long, and we chose to move on.  

I'm not sure how I will handle a bad review from a Guest like this post discussed - when it wasn't warranted.  I hope that I can avoid that in advance with good hospitality service.