Thought would be useful to share our experience with hosts in colder climates: despite clearly stating our heating limitations in the house rules and proving that the property was heated above the upper limit during the guests' stay, Airbnb ruled that a 1* retaliatory review from the guests claiming the place was freezing cannot be removed. On top of it, these same guests broke our house rules...
Our property is based in Edinburgh, Scotland and in our house rules we state that indoor heating can only go as high as 22C/72F. If someone requires higher temperatures to feel comfortable, they are welcome to book elsewhere. A group of ** guests clearly didn't read the rules, because they checked in and the next day started complaining that the place was freezing. When we went to check that the heating was running, both central heating as well as an additional electric heater were on, inside the flat it was over 25C/77F, the property door was open and the guests were out and about. We notified them that leaving the main door unlocked is against house rules and sent them pics showing the inside temperature and never heard back from them during their stay. Two days after checkout they requested 75% of the amount paid back because the place didn't match the listing and it was freezing. At the same time, using meter readings during the checkin vs checkout days, I could prove to them that they used over 70GBP worth of gas during a 4 nights stay and this further backs up the +25C we observed during their stay. In response the guests left a 1 * review for the entire listing as well individual categories.
When asked to remove the review as retaliatory, Airbnb gave a pre-canned response that the review cannot be removed:
"I would like to say that I empathize with your dissatisfaction. As far as I understood you feel that this review is irrelevant and beyond your control as a Host. Reviews are a very subjective experience. Every single review is a resemblance of human subjective perception of reality or experience. We encourage guests and Hosts to leave a review in order to share that experience that they accrued from that experience."
So if you are hosting during winter and have any sort of limits on heating don't expect to be able to uphold them without consequences. In hindsight I wish I would have asked the guests to leave on the second day of their stay when I went there and found the door open and the heat blazing. Like this, I incurred increased energy costs and we are losing the Superhost status due to the 1* review.
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