Guest Review

[Jack-and-Karen1]

We just had a couple check out of our unit today. They were very nice and friendly. They kept the place clean, and were good with the house rules. 
When I changed the bed I found blood on the fitted sheet. I also found my good (for show) hand towel soiled beyond cleaning. Should I let that be reflected in the review? Should I hold back funds? Should I check with ABNB?

Thank you!! ... Newbies

[Sarah977]

@Jack-and-Karen1  Cost of doing business. You should never embarrass guests in a review by mentioning bodily fluids. Blood is easily removable by soaking in cold water and treating with hydrogyn peroxide or other enzyme cleaner. And don't have things around "for show". Everything in an Airbnb, you should assume guests may use.

These sound like fine guests. Accidents happen.

[Maia29]

As for me, I personally wouldn't charge the guest. Accidents do happen and I view it more as par for the course. Other hosts, however, charge guests for everything.

The Shout Extra stain remover is good for blood stains, soak it in cold water, and wait it out.

Although a lot of hosts prefer white towels, I started using darker towels for my hand towels because they hide stains better and often last longer. Or I buy one of those 10-pack white hotel hand towels from Costco for $10 and just bleach the heck out of them.

I would personally get several good reviews under your belt before complaining about guests and requiring reimbursement (within reason of course). Many hosts do not concur with my outlook on this issue however.

[Jack-and-Karen1]

Thank you!  Just looking for some guidance. Just tried the hydrogen peroxide! Hope it works. 👍👍👍

[Sarah977 · Accepted solution]

@Jack-and-Karen1  It's really worthwhile to research how to get various stains out of linens and towels because you are likely going to run into this quite a bit- grease and other food stains, blood, maybe other things we don't need to go into detail about. Hosts can't be just throwing things out all the time,or it becomes too expensive. It's one reason that hosts advise not letting guests wash the bedding or towels themselves- throwing things in a hot wash and a dryer, without pre-treating things that might stain, will cook it in so it never comes out.

When it comes to charging guests, or mentioning these sort of things in a review (if warranted, always in general terms, "more than usual cleaning time required") it's a matter of whether the guests just disrepected the space generally and left a huge mess and stained everything, or whether, in the case of your guests, they were nice, respectful and clean, but you found a bit of blood on the sheets, or some food smeared on something. Many people aren't as careful with other people's stuff as they would be with their own, and sometimes they just didn't notice.

As a host, you wouldn't want your guests to nit-pick every little thing they might not have found to be perfect. We need to cut each other a bit of slack when it's obvious that everyone has tried to do their best.