When do I leave a guest a bad review?

[Rachel768]

Hi all, 

I've been a host for about 6 months now and overall have had really good visitors who follow all house rules but recently people have been a little disrespectful of the house.  I rent out the entire space and only come back once they've finished their stays.  Today I came back to my house that had a sink and dishwasher full of dirty dishes, all linens/towels used and kind of just thrown around the space, full stinky trash cans with broken/no liners, big chunks of glitter all over, a window left open ( it's been very rainy), gum on the bathroom tile,  etc. They were defintely college aged people coming into town for a festival... so is it my problem for accepting them? 

Even though I was able to clean everything and there were no actual damages, is it fair to leave a poor review? Do I contact him privately first and discuss the issues?  Basically, I don't want to be overly picky.  The guy was nice and communiative before coming it was just obvious that he and his friends put zero effort into cleaning the space. 

Any advice is appreciated! 

[Robin4]

@Rachel768

Yes Rachel give him a poor review and mark him badly for cleanliness. Maybe even give him a thumbs down! Guests are expected to leave the property the way they found it and if they don't, you do need to warn other hosts.

It is best to possibly do it in a sacastic form because you get your point across without actually accusing the guest of anything specific.....

"It was a pity that 'Nigel' found an urgent reason to finish his stay, we had a devil of a time cleaning up after him and if the opportunity arose to host him again I would have to decline the invitation"

You haven't accused him of being anything other than a slob! The rest of us will get the hint Rachel, most of us are not fools....we don't need a ....'he left all his dishes in the sink, he smeared something all over the walls, he left stain in the toilet, he did not take his garbage out.......That is just plain 'voyeurism', looking for a Cecil B Demilles epic. As I said we are not fools and when a host says a guest would not be welcome again, that is all we need!

Cheers.....Rob

[Victoria567]

Hi@Robin

Facts do not equal voyeurism.....I certainly don’t wish to know where you get your jollies from!

Facts are always appreciated and not a tome of War and Peace.

Facts in a short review such as

smeared xyz over the walls ( if you don’t know what xyz is then don’t mention it)

left xyz in the toilet pan

left a sink full of dirty dishes in the kitchen sink( or wherever else they were left)

left all the rubbish in the kitchen( or wherever lease this rubbish was left)

that would have been enough!

[Anonymous]

I can do without the toilet details, but it's good to have enough info to distinguish whether the guest was just messy or also posed a risk to the property with their negligence (e.g. leaving windows or doors open). The latter, of course, is far more serious than dirty dishes.

[Kelly149]

GLITTER!!!! Immediate 1* Cleanliness 

please go ahead & be fussy. I guarantee they didn’t pay hotel rates so they don’t get to have a hotel experience. 

And yes, you have to price ACL weekend to account for this but just bc they paid more doesn’t mean they get to trash your house. Thumbs Down. Low Stars. 

I agree with @@Andrew about the review text. 

[Rachel768]

HA.  Yeppp.  You get it.  I'll use that sentence in the review

[Thuy28]

Dear Rachel,

if you think you want to give guests bad reviews because they deserve it, don't be hesitating. Why? Because if they want to give us bad review, they always feel free to do it and don't give a sh*t about what happen to us.

I once had a guest whom I was very nice to. He was the first guest I've invited to have self-cooked dinner when he checked in (about 11 pm), cooked coffee for him in the morning and helped him with everything he needed during his stay. We talked a lot and had a very decent goodbye.

After that he left me a review: "Thuy is lovely, she allowed me to check in late. I was very happy to stay with her" and rated me for Communication 4 stars ... Then I wrote him a message and asked if something was wrong during his stay and he just told me that he thought he gave me already 5 stars and see what he can do to change it. But actually he did nothing and didn't even care about how important reviews to host is. 

Some guests are just too selfish and heartless. I have been always considering to give guest bad reviews but now no more. If I met a bad guest, no hesitate giving bad reviews!

[Daniel2063]

My Wife and I just had our first bad hosting experience.Our guests turned the thermostats all up to 75 degress and opened all of the windows with an outside temperature of 40 degrees. The house was left looking sort of  rough but not horrible at first glance but..... every pot,pan,utensil, plate and cup was used and put away in the cabinets dirty.Why would anybody do this? We read the reviews on this guy before his arrival and everyone said he was a great guest.We're thinking about our review now and not sure where to go with it. This was definitely a for work situation (seven day rental)but the guest we were expecting only actually stayed the first and last day while his coworkers were there for the entire week. Any advice  on how to approach the situation and review would be appreciated.

[Huma0]

@Daniel2063So this guest booked just for himself, but then his colleagues stayed without your permission? Or, did he tell you before that he would just be there part of the trip and others would be staying there the rest of the time?

Firstly, third party bookings are not allowed on Airbnb. I would count this as a third party booking, because even though the guest who booked stayed at the beginning and end, someone else was there instead of him for the rest of the time. If this happened without your permission, then that's breaking the rules and the guest should get a thumbs down.

Putting dirty dishes back in the cabinets is disgusting and a bit weird. These guests would not get a good review from me.

If you agreed to have these other people staying while the booking guest was gone, don't do it again! The other people have no reason to respect your rules. They are not the ones who are going to get reviewed.

[Allen93]

I would just lay t out there and tell it like it is...it protects all hosts who may have occasion to rent to these people...personally, we have not had that experience because our pricing is high enough to ward off the low end folks who have a greater propensity to abuse a property.

[Shoshana3]

I don't know whether or not to write a bad review either. I see that many hosts here think that we should warn each other, but it can only hurt the previous host to say negative things. On one hand, I feel like I should "just get over it" (and I usually do) On the flip side, I imagine myself as a concierge at a high-end hotel and hide all embarrassing facts about my guest and want to be as discreet as possible.  I have found that the guests that trash my house the worst are often the ones that always leave me a bad review. In the past, I have decided to take the "if you have nothing nice to say then say nothing at all" approach, to the reviews. When they criticize me, I regret not leaving them a bad review... 

[Harvin0]

' I have found that the guests that trash my house the worst are often the ones that always leave me a bad review.' -  100 % accurate. we just had this experience, I was bit hesitant to  give bad review previously,  but I reviewed our previous guest 1 star and not to my surprise she gave my place 3 star bringing my avg down down.