Guest left our house a mess! Should we leave a bad review?

[Greg1945]

Our very first guest left the house a mess.  Damages included but were not limited to:

1.  Chipped quartz countertop in kitchen island.

2.  Excessive trash throughout the house.

3.  Smoking evidence / cigarette butts all over the front and back yard.  We are a no smoking house!

4.  Make-up stains on linen, towels and decorative items that cannot be removed.  We provide dark makeup towels for makeup removal.

5.  Two (2) broken lamp shades.

6.  Some type of sticky black glue on the toilet seat that would not come off.  Had to replace the seat. 

7.  Left vulgar photos in our guest book and we had to remove the page. 

8.  Left a candle burning unattended.  We are a no flame house!  We provide a pellet grill and LED candles for use.  

9.  Left all types of personal items in the house (i.e. shoes, shirts, blankets, socks, etc.) 

It took the cleaning people 12 hours to restore the house to ready to rent status.  We have to find another location for our guest that was arriving later that day.  We reached out to the guest and they agreed to pay $500 for the damages.  The sent the money via Cash App.  The amount they paid really didn't cover the damages and the loss of income for the one night. 

The questions now is...  Do we leave a review?  I don't have anything nice to say about this guest.  My honest review would be "Guest was not respectful of the home or our house rules.  Would not rent to again!" 

[Mike-And-Jane0]

@Greg1945 sounds like a very generous review to me given the damage etc.

[Greg1945]

Thanks for your feedback.  It was our first guest and we were unsure about how to handle it.  

[Huma0]

@Greg1945 

Wow. I'm really sorry that happened to you with your very first guest. Are you using instant booking? Do you vet guests at all before you accept them? Please don't just accept every booking that comes along. Most guests are great, but there are enough bad ones out there that you need to be cautious.

[Greg1945]

We vet our guests as much as possible prior to allowing them to book.  We do use instant booking. We ask specific questions about the guest stay, why they are coming to town, how many people will be staying vs. stopping by the property, if they are planning any parties or gatherings, etc.  Despite the house rules, people are going to do what they want when they have possession of your home unfortunately.  Overall, we have had good experiences.  There have been a few bad apples though!  : ( 

[Matthew2016]

Came across this post, although I see that it is old.. my husband and I had a similar experience with our first Airbnb guests at our luxury property. Our first guests did not follow rules, disrupted our neighbors by jumping over fences, broke sliding barn door hardware in our home and we were left with a $500+ cleaning fee as they destroyed the house- this has left us questioning if Airbnb is even worth the hassle! Would love to hear back from you regarding guests you have had after your initial incident and if you have had an overall good experience after your “bad apple” first guests

[Sophia]

Hey @Matthew2016, I noticed your comment on this old post. I just wanted to check if you contacted Support regarding this? If so, was a resolution reached? 😊

[Gillian166]

@Greg1945  of course you leave a review! $500 will barely cover the extra cleaning, let alone the loss of a night's rental. You need to mark them 1* across the board. 

btw you can get those chips in your stone benchtops filled in, it's not perfect but it's something. 

[Greg1945]

Thanks for the countertop tip!  Will try that.  You're right the $500 was nothing.  Should have charged more.  This was a learning experience for sure! 

[Laura5060 · Accepted solution]

In my opinion, you should have charged for the missed night of income as well. It's a good idea to 

add links to your explanation to show the replacement cost of items and to give a full and detailed explanation when you request the money. Take photos of the damage before you try to fix it... so photos of stains before you try to clean them. You may not need them, but you have them. Photos of the cleaning bill....etc..

Always communicate through the app as this is your PROOF of communications. 

The guest has the option of ignoring, declining, or offering an additional amount.

If you do not come to an agreement or if the guest does not respond then, after 24 hrs., you have the option of escalating the claim to Airbnb who will attempt to work with the guest for reimbursement. If this does not produce a result, Airbnb will cover the costs with their insurance.

Think about your need to prove everything to insurance - including what it will cost to replace the items.

Airbnb also has the ability to flag the guest's account so that there is a history of this behavior. It is possible, that you are not the first host whose property they have disrespected. Airbnb has the power to terminate a guest's account as well. While your reviews will speak for themselves and will support your case. 

Furthermore, if the person writes a bad review, you can call Airbnb and ask to "dispute a review based on retaliation. Airbnb has the ability to remove comments.

When I've wanted to give a poor review, I wait til the last day and then write it up...they don't have time to respond.

Accurate and fair reviews are important to protect other hosts in our hosting community. 

[Greg1945]

All valid and good points.  Thanks so much!  We are having a continuous problem with makeup stains and now hair dye.  Hotel white sheets and towels do not fair well even though they look nice upon arrival.  Looks like we will be replacing often!  

[Brandon718]

If the guest leaves a review before you do, how would you handle that? 

[Greg1945]

I believe you can report it as retaliation and Airbnb will investigate and remove it.  

[Rick4645]

Yes.  The guest clearly disrespected your home. When you don't review bad guests, the only ones who benefit are the bad guests themselves. Future hosts will be blind-sided and the guests have learned they won't face any repercussions for their poor life choices.

If these were my guests, based on the information you provided, my review would be as follows:

"Cheech and Chong were extremely disrespectful guests. House rules were broken, most notably our No Smoking rule. They left obscene messages in the guest book, which is the ultimate show of disrespect.  Multiple items in the home were damaged and they apparently don't know what a trash can is as they didn't bother to use them, leaving volumes of refuse throughout the home, inside and out.  We could not get our home prepped in time for our next guest due to the excessive filth so we had to find other accommodations for them. Strongly do NOT recommend to other hosts."

This is why AirBNB needs to restore the Security Deposit function to ALL hosts, not just hosts who pay a subscription for special software.