That one guest!

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Robin4
Level 10
Mount Barker, Australia

That one guest!

I have been lucky, always had a great bunch of guests...struck a Malaysian family once who didn't quite understand how the system worked.

But I just struck the one I keep responding to here on the CC. Everyone else gets them, now I have!

 

My most recent guest ruffled me a bit though, best she gave me was a 4 star, major reason in her comments......'the polished concrete floor was cold'....room wasn't, neither was the bed....just the floor.

 

She was a first in almost every respect though, she gave me.......

A 4 for Accuracy, now that is a first for me, in 160 guests not copped that one before. I would defy any other guest who has been here to tell me what wasn't accurate!

A 3 for cleanliness...she found a cobweb, God knows where, but she found one!

A 4 for location....that defies any sort of logic....she booked it and I can't move it!

A 4 for value...................??

I charge $85 AU ( $63.37 USD, 49 pounds) per night, with, at that point, no cleaning fee and this is what every guest gets thrown in....

 

IMG20180317111324 b.jpg

 

Plus all the regular condiments like tea, coffee, jams, spreads, soap, toilet paper.

 

And I get a 4 star for value! Some guests really are loonies. If I had given this woman the listing for nothing for the two nights....it still would not have been acceptable value!

 

But guests like this have a negative impact on all users because, I have now set a cleaning fee. Not much of one, but obviously I am not doing the job properly and it will enable me to get a cleaner in once a week to make absolutely sure there is not a lurking cobweb.....period. Every future guest will pay a bit more because of this one woman. My 'Alice in Wonderland' image of Airbnb guests is just a bit tarnished and I hope that doesn't show through to future guests

 

Never mind....I knew I would cop one sooner or later, just been lucky till now but, this is the job we are in, sink or swim!

 

Rant over!

 

Cheers......Rob

1 Best Answer
Huma0
Level 10
London, United Kingdom

@Robin4

 

Lol, Lucille Ball gone mad! I recently hosted a late middle aged American couple and it went something like this...

 

The booking came through the wife's account and I was getting extremely apprehensive about it as her communication was shocking. When she would finally respond to a message she would simply ignore any questions and would not give me an arrival time no matter how many times I asked.

 

On arrival day itself, I had to send a fairly blunt message saying that if she didn't tell me when they were arriving, I simply couldn't be home. Finally, husband took over and started texting me and there was some progress, although they took an extraordinary amount of time to get here from the airport. I supect they had decided to do a detour and leave me waiting.

 

I went out of my way for these guests from the moment they arrived. Mrs. immediately wanted to do laundry (not available for short term guests), which I did for her for free. She never thanked me. I spent half an hour late at night showing her how to work the TV, left it on for her because she needed to get something upstairs and then she never came back to watch it! For the rest of the stay, she completely ignored me. I never saw her again. She wasn't upset with me. She just had no manners.

 

Mr. on the other hand was friendly, chatty, thanked me profusely for the laundry, said it was the best Airbnb they had stayed in, London was wonderful etc, and left a lovely comment in the guest book. I got the impression that he was so in love with his wife that he put up with anything.

 

When it came to leaving a review, I was totally confounded. He had been great, she had been awful, and I had no idea which of them was going to write my review. In the end, I was kind. Their review was clearly written by the husband and was glowing. Phew!

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62 Replies 62
Steve416
Level 10
New South Wales, Australia

@Robin4 Some people will never be satisfied - no matter what you do - even if you scrambled the eggs for them and served it on a silver platter! It is really is this guest’s problem, not yours, that they are negative, unappreciative and unkind. Of course this behaviour affects us as hosts, and also impacts our ratings which makes it more frustrating. I’m sure this guest won’t be invited for dinner!

As ABB CS would say - look forward to better experiences in future 😉

Robin4
Level 10
Mount Barker, Australia

@Steve416

Yeah you are right mate, but when you keep on getting those perfect 5's one like this jumps out at you. I know it is no big deal and it was only a matter of time before one came along.

It was not a disaster Steve....in fact it was barely a ripple on the surface  and all it does is push my 5 star review stats down a percentage point.

I have said before, every guest teaches you something and every now and then it's good for someone to take us out of this fools paradise we live in where all we do is pat each other on the back and say what wonderful humans we all are.

 

On with the next mate, good on you Steve.

 

Cheers.....Rob

Rebecca181
Level 10
Florence, OR

@Robin4 You might have read this from me elsewhere, but my all-time favorite unfavorite guest was the cocky Millenial who wrote a review expressing his great disappointment that he had to sleep "in the Big Cottage" because he thought the Sun Room was a "Tiny House". Despite photos and very clear descriptions of my property, Cottage, and amenities (including Sun Room). Naturally, he did not share any of this with me during his stay, or I would have thrown him some blankets and pillows and told him to have at it. I mean, what is there to say? That's when I realized that Airbnb guests are like a box of Chocolates....And if you've seen the film 'Forrest Gump', you know the rest. And I will go to bed tonight dreaming of that wonderful food / cheese tray you serve each of your lucky guests! 

I know....we got a 4 a couple of weeks ago.

 

Was a lady who stayed for one night because of a play she wanted to see in our local village theatre. 3 minutes by car from us. She also stayed here so next day she could leave to office not having to go back home and leave from there.

4 for location.

 

Value and accuracy 4. Bloody hell.  She paid 34 euro for one night. Got welcome drink. Large breakfast. Chocolate Easter egg on the table and home made chocalate pudding.

 

Also 4 for the way we welcomed her. She was really late in order the check inn and see the play so we welcomed her and said that normally we provide a welcome drink together with us but asked if she wanted it or continue with the see trough of bathroom and room since the play would be starting soon.

Arghh.

 

Anyhow...

 

I know that on the forum we always ask people to write honest reviews but last week we were staying at a superhost in maroc. The appartment could have been a tad cleaner. 1 fly in fridge. Dishes still on dripping rack. Bearly enough cutlery.... i wanted to give 4 but in the end i gave 5 but 4 for cleanliness and send him a private review. I just couldnt to give him overall 4 because he had to have so many 5 to make up for that. And the app. Was really good value for money. Anyhow....it also can work like that since we also host and you could see he did his best

Robin4
Level 10
Mount Barker, Australia

@Ellen33 @Jessica-and-Henry0

Ellen, I said in another thread, where on earth do these guest come from, I never see them.

Well you see that was my biggest mistake, I opened my big mouth and made a positive comment.

In reality I have had 5 guests through here that I would not care to meet again out of a total of 215, (160 with Airbnb), although Ellen, time dims the memory, and because they are few and far between each time one comes along I tend to think it's the first.

 

The thing that we have to comfort ourselves with Ellen, that guest did not just 'rawloch' you, she finds fault with everyone and everything. Can you contemplate how misserable her life must be! She never looks for anything positive, her radar is attuned to the negative. I bet she doesn't sleep well at night...she is all the time turning over in her mind how she got screwed and who is going to screw her next...the cupboard of understanding is empty.

That is diametrically opposed to how I want to live my life....I just have not picked up a 'sure-fire' way of picking them so I can give them a wide channel around my space.

 

Cheers......Rob

@Robin4

The pic of your welcome basket of goodies is making me want to take a detour at the supermarket today after work....which is in about 40mins....... but I really shouldn't 🙂

 

Honestly though...... I suggest you relax with a glass of wine and forget about THAT guest. Of course, there will always be some room for improvement but I doubt THAT guest will have any constructive or helpful feedback. IMO she should be looking in the mirror if she needs to find someone to criticize~

@Robin4  - So I'm going out on a ledge here....

 

What you've just experienced is a social and cultural phenomenon going on in China right now.  As an emerging middle-class comes forward as the economic climate has improved so significantly, the young, "indulgent", group is traveling more and don't have the manners associated with well-travelled guests. 

http://www.sixthtone.com/news/1000610/chinas-middle-class-comes-with-new-characteristics

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/destinations/asia/china/how-chinese-tourists-travel-etiquette-and...

The bad behavior of this new class of travelers (characteristics once confined to horrible Americans), prompted the Chinese government to actually put out a guide to help curb some of these behaviors and a black list keeping some badly-behaved Chinese tourists from traveling at all. 

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/travel/news/Chinas-new-guide-to-civilised-tourism/  

http://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/1671504/rude-awakening-chinese-tourists-have-means-not-manner...

https://www.japantimes.co.jp/opinion/2016/10/07/commentary/world-commentary/chinese-tourists-badly-b...

https://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2014/04/15/chinese-tourists-ugly-americans_n_5150905.html

https://www.cnbc.com/2016/10/11/tourists-behaving-badly-name-and-shame-effort-fails-to-fix-chinas-im...

It would be great to reach out to the other 5 Aussie hosts that took care of them to see what surprises Jessican and Allen left for them in their reviews.  Personally, I would be inclined to do so to see if this was generally a smear against just you or if they uniformly down-scored everyone.  Sometimes a guest needs to be educated about the process. 

 

Sorry this has happened and am not trying to start a cultural or racial debate but only to offer some insight as to why this may have happened, with this couple, at this time.  

@Alice-and-Jeff0

Hi Alice, this is the problem when threads start to drift off the topic, we ramble here and there and I am the first to admit I am one of the main offenders!

 

The guest that is the subject of this thread is not Asian, in fact they are originally from your part of the world, they were from Carolina, I am not sure which.

I absolutely love all of my Asian guests and that review that I put up earlier in this thread in response to Nikolai was to illustrate how saying anything is free can be a problem, because future guests get the impression that what might have been free for one guest will also be free for them!

I included in that post a review left by Jess and Alan (who were a lovely young couple from Singapore) to show that I want guests to stick to the basics of the review....don't go bringing up extra things like meals or taxiing because it puts me under pressure down the track. I want to do these things for my guests, but I don't want them expected of me..... and that is what I highlighted in that review.

 

So it wasn't guests from Asia that I couldn't seem to please. There has never been a guest from China, or anywhere in Asia that I could not please. And Alice it is the strange little things that we take for granted. All Asians absolutely love Adrienne for three reasons,

1/. She is old to many of them, and they do revere their elders!

2/. She has natural blonde hair, and oddity for them.

3/. She is disabled and in a wheelchair when getting around, you don't see many disabled Chinese in public.

They all want their photos taken with Adrienne and we found that when we were in Beijing, strangers would come up and want their picture taken next to Ade.

For me, Asians, and in particular Koreans and Chinese are without doubt my best guests...If there is going to be an issue, It's the late middle age westerers that the problem will come from!

 

Cheers......Rob

My apologies, @Robin4, I thought I was providing information to help you realize that it wasn't really a problem about what you did but something greater.  There was no attempt to slander any group, just provide some background.  

 

The truth of it is that Americans have always been ugly travelers and that is well documented. As I try to read the review they left for you, I can't find a guest from the US but I didn't look too hard.  Hopefully this one will not impact you too much.   

@Alice-and-Jeff0

Hey, don't apologise, you are one of the truly great contributors on the CC and have been for as long as I can remember...In fact you probably were one of those who saved me from doom in my early days....couldn't ever thank you enough Alice!

It was my fault for drifting of the topic. I actually started another thread about this reservation that kept asking lots and lots of questions, Ended up asking me 36 questions in the message stream. Now normally I would pull the plug on a booking like that....it had disaster written all over it. But the questions were all warm and fuzzy and I kept on responding with other hand all the time ready to pounce on the phone and call CS for help on this one.

That review I posted early in this thread in response to Nikolai was the result of that stay...the girl who asked all those questions. They were just the most gorgeous young couple from Singapore and they continued the legacy I have here with Asian guests. They are all wonderful and Alice I am going to defend them whenever I can.

God, you are one of the last people I would ever accuse of any racial bias after all the great posts you have made defending racial relationships....It was my fault, not your Alice.

I just didn't want you getting the wrong impression.

 

Cheers.....Rob

Patricia55
Level 10
Newcastle upon Tyne, United Kingdom

@Robin4  "If there is going to be an issue, it's the late middle age westerners that the problem will come from!"

This definitely chimes with our experience! - middle-aged, prosperous couples from southern England are almost guaranteed to give us 4 stars. They are very often first-time Airbnb'rs and I have the impression they've been persuaded to give it a go by their kids (whom they're visiting or ferrying to and from the universities here in Newcastle). It's almost as if their unspoken statement is “well, I've stayed in 5-star hotels before and I couldn't possibly give this place 5 stars” - while overlooking the huge price difference! These days I do feel like saying to them beforehand: “Are you SURE you want to stay in our home? I mean, WE like it, but it's not luxurious and may not be up to your high standards... maybe you'd be better staying in a hotel...” But I can't quite bring myself to say that!

 

Our younger guests (including young Chinese) have been much more appreciative and generous with their reviews.

 

 

Robin4
Level 10
Mount Barker, Australia

@Patricia55

 

Pat, why is it that nobody can ever do something as well as 'that particular' woman??

They feel that a man is incapable of performing even the most basic of duties such as, putting the toilet seat down when they have been!

They think the whole human race rolls along at the pace of that raised toilet seat...completely incompatible with the female ideology!

I have swung a few around though Pat. I have to look after a disabled wife, I have to do the washing, the housekeeping, the restocking, the cottage servicing.....and the cooking.

I love my cooking, and have been doing it for long enough to understand the consequences of what you do in a kitchen. I can turn on a meal that makes them wonder what they have been doing all these years and taking accolades for.

Late 50's early 60's western women are a pain in the a*se but, I have had a few of them leaving here thinking they are maybe not always right.

But I can't 'snag' it every time Pat! The occasional ' brute' will get through, and it shows up in my reviews. :-))

 

Cheers.....Rob

@Robin4   I have known so many men laboring under the false notion that the reason women want the toilet seat down is because we don't like how a raised toilet seat looks. It never occurred to them that because we women sit down to pee, an open toilet seat when we stumble into the bathroom in the middle of the night half asleep means we fall in the toilet!

Robin4
Level 10
Mount Barker, Australia

@Sarah977

See there you go, Sarah, men go into a relationship thinking it is going to be a 50/50 thing, we do something, and our partner does something for us.

But the reality of it is, the longer the relationship goes, the more the man is expected to do and the less a woman expects to give! It is simply a fact of life in all relationships.

 

The woman does not wish the man to aim through that little hole when the seat is down....and most men would no doubt agree with that, after all they don't want to have to 'thread the eye of the needle' everytime mature calls.

 

Since the dawn of time this has never been an issue because, there was no such things as porcelain pans and seats, let alone 'soft close' jobbies where you don't even have to touch it, you can just give it a gentle nudge or a kick.....Men stood and aimed and women squated, and that's way it was for millenia.

But, evolution has meant a lot of hard work by men coming up with solutions that make life easy and much more comfortable for women...right! I believe the flushable toilet was invented by a Mr Thomas Crapper!

 

Now to back up a bit, the woman does not want the seat tainted with any traces of personal matter but, she expects to, not just find the seat in the down postion when she arrives, she expect to leave the seat in the down position and preferable with the lid closed when she leaves...

Now don't go telling me Sarah that she is happy to stumble into the ablution area in the middle of the night and sit on a closed seat!!! No, she is quite happy to personally intervene and......raise the lid and proceed. So, don't go giving me any of this balony business of not wanting to fall into the recepticle, she wants neatness!

So, backing right up to my lead in comment, the man 'has' to raise the seat on entry and is expected to lower the seat on exit!

 

Where is the 50/50 in that??

 

Cheers.....Rob

 

PS: Thanks Sarah for this 'tongue in cheek' repartie on the side, I love comical meanderings, it brings a nice balance into what are some fairly serious issues I have to deal with!

Hi Patricia, just wanted to jump in on this comment! 🙂 I have been hosting since June 2015 and from time to time have become so disheartened with 4 star comments that I decided to put in my write up about our home that we are  more 'funky family' rather than 'house-proud hotel'. Ha! And I make it very clear that I DO clean the home for a good 2 hours before everyone's arrival, but, since everyone is different and has different standards, it might be that someone has spotted something that I haven't. We live in a house built in the 1800s with wooden floors and ultimately I refuse to sweat the small stuff. 

 

However, @Robin4 I also wanted to add a comment about 'that guest', since I have just metaphorically waved one off today. It appears (I may be wrong) that we are her first ever Airbnb. She is older (60s) and from USA and felt that it was ok to get up at 4.30am. Yep. She announced that she would be getting up at that time on her first night as she said goodnight, stating that that is what she has done all her life (having been in the catering industry). I was so taken aback, and her attitude was so 'take it or leave it' that I was taken aback and didn't have a chance to ask her not to.  So she got up the following day, a work day for me, in a house where noise travels (which I also mention on my write up), at 4.30am. She didn't even go out for the day!!!!! ... grrrr.... anyway...  I summoned up the courage on Day 2 to ask her not to do so again as it's (blimmin) disturbing.. her moving around, taking a shower, having breakfast in our open plan kitchen (you can hear people clattering around in the kitchen downstairs from the bedrooms above)... all before 6am! I ask you! When I spoke to her about it, she said 'oh, I thought I would get up before everyone else, that way I won't be in the bathroom when others are using it.' Erm, hang on, you know my husband doesn't go out to work and we have a student lodger who sleeps in every morning. You won't be in anyone's way at a normal time. And, what I tell my guests who want to use the bathroom around 7-8 am, (my normal time of getting up/using the bathroom), 'if you're in the bathroom when I want to use it, that is my own problem; I should organise myself enough to work around that.'

 

I could go on. She stayed for 3 nights. She's just left. She really really triggered me! On her first night she just sits herself down in our sitting room and takes over the tv viewing! I was out and my husband is too sweet to say anything! On her first full day she didn't go out at all as she 'didn't realise that Plymouth was so hilly' (??!!) and wasn't able to walk anywhere. When I explained where the bus stop to town was (1 minute's stroll from our front door) she said she was watching her pennies and couldn't afford (2 pounds for goodness sake) to take the bus anywhere. So she spent the ENTIRE day sitting watching our tv. Morning noon and night. Double grrr.  

 

And whilst she was here, the neighbourhood ants decided to pay us a visit. Just because. And we were taking a while to decide how to deal with them because we don't want to poison our dog. Fair point. She tells us it's because of the dog food that is down in our dog's bowl. ARGH. 

 

Oh and upon our first meeting (my coming home at 9.30pm from a course I do on a Tuesday evening) after an initial greeting she decides to tell me how busy I am, having had a good look at our calendar that is hanging on the wall. Wow. That's a great way to build relationship! (not). 

 

Anyway, regarding reviews, I don't want to review her. I have been wondering how to phrase things nicely and I just don't know how to. I am going to wait to see if she leaves us a review. I have a feeling that if she does, it's all going to be super negative. Simply because she is one who carries criticism, monopoly of conversation and negativity as part of how she relates to the world around her. And there is nothing I can do about that. I just have to trust that our other positive/great reviews will bring in the right people for us. 

 

What does annoy me is that we are pretty cheap at less than 20 pounds per night for our small room. And yes, despite the low cost of the room, people still seem to have certain expectations. Like Rob, we offer added extras. Maybe a meal together, maybe a glass of wine. This is always ONLY out of relationship formed. And I do make that clear on my write up. If the relationship isn't there, the extras won't be either. 

 

Anyway thanks for letting me vent. Sorry this is a long one and a bit of a bunny trail. Sort of. xx