Hello all, I'm Hannah and I've been a member [edit: of Airb...
Latest reply
Hello all, I'm Hannah and I've been a member [edit: of Airbnb] for over 5 years but I am new to the community forums. It rea...
Latest reply
Hi everyone,
I'm a pretty new host, so I may be a bit strict on house rules. I had a guest who was trying to have a party with 10 guests over in a 1 bedroom condo. When I saw this, I messaged her on Airbnb app to ask her guests to leave since her phone was blocked. She also had extra guests staying over than the 2 she booked. After the stay, I requested additional money for the vomit in the bathroom, extra guests, and breaking house rules. She gave me a 1 star review. How do you all deal with guests like this? How do you prevent this from happening in the future?
She has no reviews and said that she was visiting friends and family in the area.
I started 1 month ago and have all 5 star reviews except for this one. Now Airbnb is sending emails about my listing being at risk. What should I do?
Thanks so much!
@Yiwei3 There is nothing you can do to prevent a 1-star review. If the text of the review violates Airbnb's content policy, you can request that it be removed, but they have no provisions for objecting to a review on the basis of the star rating alone. Your recourse is to write a public response, and a reciprocal review, which it appears that you've done - and quite well.
My suggestion to Airbnb has long been that they allow text reviews for all stays, but disable the star ratings under circumstances involving disputes such as rule violations and damage claims. If you search the word "retaliatory" in these forums you'll see hundreds of threads from hosts with similar issues, and such a policy might have made a difference in most of those cases. Unfortunately, given that Airbnb is currently overwhelmed by the Covid-19 crisis, they won't be dealing with stuff like this anytime soon.
Looking ahead to whenever tourism resumes in your area, the best way you can avoid these situations in the future is to take proactive measures to prevent parties and extra guests from happening in the first place, such as external cams, and disclose them clearly in the listing to deter party-planners. Leaving off Instant Book, and screening booking requests can also be an effective filter. The minute you've lost control over the property, your options are all bad ones.
That’s not true. If they break the rules and do damage their review should not be allowed. I’ve had a review removed under such circumstances.
@Lola41 Then you are one of the few hosts who have managed to have a review like this removed. Hosts normally get told that the review stands as long as it doesn't break any of their review policies. Lying and retaliation reviews apparently are allowed and don't contravene policy.
Host's should not be told this. Airbnb needs to stand behind their policy
Broken House Rule means no review allowed.
can you link the policy that says this? thank you!
@Melinda400 This is not Airbnb policy so you will not find a link to the (non existent) policy.
How did you get it removed?
I have similar reviews.
@Harriet68 All of the reviews on your profile for this calendar year to date are positive, and none of them violate any of the rules in the content policy. Removal of reviews is very rare. What review are you wanting to be removed, and on what basis?
You got lucky;
in my case even under the official governmental inspection prove, that the guest complaints were false, Airbnb's response( twice) was - they didn't find anything wrong with the review. I am doubting if they read the document at all...
So, I lost my Superhost status due to false complaints.
Actually breaking of house rules does invalidate the guests' review and it must be removed. Airbnb reps may push back because it can be involved but they do eventually remove them.
@Anonymous thanks for your response and advice! I agree with you that taking out star review for disputes would be good. What do you recommend I do to prevent this in the future? I already have a Ring doorbell, which is how I caught this one because the guests kept pressing the doorbell. Do I list consequences if they don't follow house rules? How do I enforce my house rules and would Airbnb back me up?
@Yiwei3 I agree with Sarah's suggestions below - you can eliminate the overwhelming majority of parties just by having a 3 night minimum stay.
As far as consequences go, there's not much you can do about rule violations after the booking is over. Airbnb will not back you up if you try to impose penalties or fines, and there's no guarantee that they will back you up on retroactively adding extra guest fees if thw guest denies them. So you need to be able to deal with this stuff without Airbnb's help. The one recourse you always have is to terminate the booking and remove the unruly guests from your property.
@Anonymous If I terminate the reservation, I may still get a bad review? I should have terminated the last one, but I was trying to be nice and let just her stay. Next time, I will make sure to end it and put it in my house rules.
@Yiwei3 Yes, a booking becomes eligible for review as soon as the check-in date begins - even if the guest cancels or doesn't show up on the arrival date. They're only prevented from reviewing you if they cancel prior to that date.
But please, don't let yourself be controlled by fear of a bad review. It's your home, you're the boss, and if one listing service isn't giving you the results you hoped for you are free to take your business to another. I do think it's still possible, though, for Airbnb to work well for you. The most important test is the correspondence prior to accepting a booking. It's easy enough to lie about plans and party size, but convincingly feigning grace and decency is a skill very few of the a-holes out there possess.