Ridiculously picky guests

[Roberta150]

Has this happened to anyone? In my listing, which is also my home, I use energy-saving light bulbs. This morning my "holistic" guests in town for a massage class complained about them, telling me they contain mercury and should be replaced. They preceded it by saying "Your place is so wonderful, clean, and amazing, but we were surprised to see..." After the morning encounter with them, I stayed in my master bedroom until they left since I was at my limit of politely smiling during their rude attack and unwarranted fears. The trace amount of mercury is only a  slight danger if the bulb breaks and is mishandled during clean up - highly unlikely for a guest unless they remove it from the light and send it crashing to the ground. The energy saved versus regular bulbs is huge and great for the environment. I hope they don't mention it in their review.

This is second only to a similar "health-minded, holistic" guest who grilled me first on the tap water, "Is it chlorinated or fluoridated?" - NO, not in Flagstaff, AZ plus there's a Brita unit for guests in the refrigerator. Then when he found out I use bottled water for the Keurig machine (to avoid any build-up), he had to tell me that "all" of it is tap water - not true BTW, it's only certain brands I don't buy. Sigh. Again, smiling, nodding, and thanking him for the valuable information while seething inside. If a guest is so picky, they should bring their own water from springs purified by the Gods or maybe stay at home! 

Thanks for letting me vent. I'm curious if other hosts have had these types of ridiculously picky, demanding guests.

[Paul154]

I'm suprised you got these guests.

Usually "holistic" people who like to attend massage workshops pay for anything as mundane as housing. They are so accustomed to being spiritually beautiful that they find others to house them for free. 

You should be so lucky they blessed you.

[Paul154]

I meant to write:

Usually "holistic" people who like to attend massage workshops do NOT pay for anything as mundane as housing. 

[Victoria567]

Yes @Paul0

They tend to couch surf and after spending most of their time inbetween massage work shops they are social justice warriors.....bless their wee cotton socks!

[Roberta150]

Lol - you've made my day!

[Kelly149]

Please think of a way to mention this in their review. 

Xxxxx were pleasant to talk with while they were in town for their xxxxx however they had some concerns about: tap water, detergent, cell phone towers, the armadillos, etc that they might be more comfortable in the future in a specific kind of home. 

This way you you aren’t complaining about them but warning future hosts that they’re fussy. 

[Victoria567]

Hi @Kelly-And-Dan0

Ive bypassed all that by clearly stating in my description, photos and house rules.

Regretfully not suitable for NUT allergies, food intolerances, allergies so please do not choose to stay in my family home.

May I respectfully suggest you seek alternative accommodation elsewhere more suited to your specialised medical and personal needs.

[David126]

Did they mention black helicopters?

You will get weird people, smile and ignore.

[Branka-and-Silvia0]

@Roberta150well energy saving light bulbs do contain mercury and they are not eco friendly, have to be disposed in a certain way and they are dangerous if they brake. When I found it out I removed them all from my house and bought LED light bulbs. LED is also energy saving and eco friendly.

But, I would never ask my host to replace lightbulbs during my stay 🙂

[City-Limits-Ranch0]

Us old people can remember when as children we had a little vial of mercury from a science experiment kit, poured it out on the counter and chased the globules around watching them divide and coalesce.  Liquid elemental metal. Fascinating.  We lived.

Mercury is best if contained.  Once it is in the bulb the best thing for the environment is to use that bulb to the end of its life and then dispose of it appropriately.  Best not to purchase that kind again.

Guests are often nitwits.  Everyone has an opinion.  Not everyone's opinion is the same.  If their opinion differs from yours oh well.

I had a customer come into my regular business the other day and shriek at me that there was a rat bait receptacle outside our building.  "Bad for the environment, toxic, dangerous" they shrieked.  "Yes," I replied, "the landlord has it put there.  Nothing I can do about it.  You can contact them to express your concern." 

Not my circus, not my monkeys. . . .

[Roberta150]

You're right - I'm preparing to sell my home and have replaced all bulbs with the newest LED ones mainly to make my home brighter and better looking, and did read up on how to properly dispose of the old ones. But I'd also never ask anyone to replace bulbs in their home.

[Lawrene0]

@Roberta150, yes, we had one in particular whose sensitivities kept us on our toes. To his credit, he brought everything up during his stay and did not merely wait until the review to broadside us. I did wonder whether he would, as he had spent a good deal of energy thinking of things that might be toxic, but in a place with no road, no wifi, no electricity, no waterpipes, no disposables, no other humans, he had his work cut out for him. The review was nice. Lecturing me had been enough. I hope the same turns out to be the case with yours.

[Mary703]

Roberta, I understand your pain. I just had a lovely guest, and I went out of my way to make her feel comfortable. However, in her review she mentioned the room was hot (we are having a heat wave, and I showed her how to work the ceiling fan, which she evidently didn't use), and then gave me a 4 out of 5 for cleanliness because there was a moth in the room (she added the note "bugs"). I am learning to grow a thick skin since I am unable to control mother nature's heat and uninvited flying guests, but I really like Kelly's response. I have not been documenting when a guest has been challenging, but going forward I see how that can really help other Hosts!

[Adriana100]

yeah, this is useful for me too. I had a young lady at my house for an interview the next day and she gave me a 3 star for having a moth. She also asked me to change rooms because bugs were attacking her and mentioned it in her review. Since when moths are bugs? Whoever is reading it might think bed bugs, God forbid! I found that people who come to stay for an interview the next day are so tense and worked out that they react disproportionatelly to small things. One time a guy texted me he checked out in the middle of the night because he couldnt sleep. He gave me a 5 star review though, so it was him, not me.

[Sophie560]

Hi Roberta, I can feel your pain!  I too, had gone out of my way to make the guest feel welcomed, when a recent guest insisted that I refund her and her family 1/2 of their rental fee because, she said:

1)  my cottage was dirty (dusty), so much so her daughter had an asmtha attack

2) she claimed all of them had been "bitten" by some kind of bug, and

3)  there was a bug and spider on the couch.

As you can imagine, this was all very upsetting to me.  I was grateful that she contacted me with this before/instead of leaving a bad review.  But still, being 4 hours away and unable to verify things myself, I agreed to contacting Airbnb and refunded her 1/2 of the rental fee.  I had my co-host and house cleaner go over and look the day after she checked out and to contact me with what she saw.

Needless to say, I have always gotten excellent reviews, and my co-host assured me the cottage was clean, no bugs, and the guests had not left the cottage in the condition we agreed to in the house rules.  

What I learned from this experience (after aggonizing over it for days) was:

1)  You can't please all the people all the time (that's really hard for me because I love to please people and take great pride in our little cottage)

2) There were no bitting bugs.  I have decided that they saw our dog crate that we leave for our dogs when we visit, and that they must have psychosomatically believed there were flees in the house.  I will add a note in the house rules that we keep our dogs there when we visit.  

3) We stayed a whole week at the cottage, two days later, and did an obsessive deep cleaning.  Afterwards, I decided I would write a check list for my co-host/housekeeper so that we would have a record of what was done prior to our guests checking in (and so that we were both on the same page when it came to standards of cleaning).

4. Since we live in the National Forest, and bugs and spiders were a known enity, I would do a better job of scheduling routine pest control.

5. Repeat #1 

While my situation with ridiculous guests was different from yours, I believe we can learn from those 

experiences.  And maybe find areas for improvement. . . even when you might want to initially kick the guests right out of your house!  LOL!!  Hang in there, there's always going to be a few people you can't please, no matter what you do.