How to make a guest book somewhere else!

[Robin4]

This is actually a follow up to another post I made just recently about dealing with guests you would really rather not deal with.

I have said here before I don't like hagglers, guests with lots of questions.

On Monday this week I got this pre-approval request from what I would describe as my epitomy of how not to approach me and ask/request a reservation if you are a guest . 

I sat on it for a few hours, logic should tell me to just say it may be better to book somewhere else. But you just never know, they might have IB,ed me anyway.

I even wrote a draft which I posted here of what I would like to have said.

Well I decided to take the bull by the horns and have a bit of fun with this request. You might think I am a calous sh*t  but in reality, you are all behind me! None of you would want to accept a request from  an enquirer like this.

So I took great delight in sending this........and quick as a flash the message came back.....'Not Possible'....brilliant, misssion accomplished! 

There are times when Airbnb can be a lot of fun!

Cheers......Rob

[Jody79]

That totally made me laugh out loud @Robin4 !  I'm so not good with words, my partner is though, I'm going to be showing him your response, he will appreciate it!

[Linda-And-Richard0]

G'Day @Robin4 Your posts always make me smile.  Love the bit about you feeding the crocodiles.  I often have to remind our guests to not feed the deer at our property.   

[Connie249]

A stroke of pure genius. Love love love it.

[Rowena29]

Hi  @Robin4 

Like everyone else I laughed heartily when I read your response. Thought it was very witty. And I can completely understand why you thought "danger danger" and reacted the way you did.

BUT I going to go against the flow a little.  I can ALSO kind of see where the guest is coming from.  Maybe it's because I started off my airbnb ing as a guest and also because I’ve only been hosting a little while. But something I have noticed is that almost all of the hosts on this forum are a particular type of host - , very committed, very caring, with very high standards - like you yourself. And after reading each others opinions a lot, I think we can get a bit of a skewed idea sometimes that all hosts are like this.  But I did have quite a few rather different experiences when I started off as a guest.

Let me explain,

My very first stay - I had no idea what I was doing really. I booked and was prompted to give a whole heap of info about myself, who else was coming, why were coming, our plans etc. I was very obedient. I did exactly that (was travelling with 5 people) and  I sent a small  thesis, giving a run down on everyone in my family,  very friendly in tone.  I recieved a very polite but distant 1 line reply. It was clear the (English speaking) host thought I was WEIRD.   I felt chagrined and foolish.  I experienced a similar thing with my next 2 bookings. So I adjusted and sent the bare minimum of info therafter and the tone of the hosts got much warmer,  so I was " trained" to not say too much. But the impression I get from these boards is that most hosts would prefer more not less info. (As I host I know I would)

Our third stay had a washer and a microwave and A/c. The washer was shared with the home owners - no problem I thought. Except on our second last day when I wanted to do a bit of washing ( we'd been there 6 days) the owners son monopolised the  shared washer AND the dryer, all day, because he was going back to uni. The power board couldn't take the load and every 20 mins the power tripped in our area (not the owners)  The  reverse cycle ac unit was some bizarre model far too small for the space and did not heat sufficiently.  We were pretty cold the whole time we were in the place. The microwave took about 30 mins to heat a basic refrigerated meal for 2.  I could go on, ( The second place we stayed had no plug for the sink so I couldn’t wash up properly, which made me wonder how long things had not been washed properly) but you get the idea. None of the places we stayed were budget,  and all had good reviews.  In short I have some empathy for the questions your guest asked as I feel it's possible he's had a couple of disastrous or pretty average stays. WE all know you're fabulous, but he doesn't. 

I know his manner sounds really curt and that would really hack me off too.  However, I've had a couple of guests recently who after reading their messages I've thought. "what a  Nazi B***ch" and they've turned out to be delightful -  I found their email  tone to be abrasive, they thought they were just direct. I think this is particularly the case if they've messaged via their phones.

I'll probably be howled down by others for saying this.

Oh well.

I'm certainly not disagreeing with you, and as you've been doing this so successfully for so long, your radar is no doubt spot on. I can see it’s highly probable this guest is self entitled, opinionated and firmly on the spectrum. (Certainly he has no sense of humour)

 I just thought I'd throw in my 2 bobs worth.

Anyway, it's good to see you on the boards again

Cheers

Rowena

[Robin4]

@Rowena29 

You know the great thing about hosting is Rowena, it is an individual thing....we have to do it our way.

I am a very outgoing personality and I really enjoy the social side of hosting. Many other hosts could not think of anything worse than interacting with guests.....Guests are just a neseccary evil required to make a few dollars! Neither of us are right or wrong Rowena, we need to do it our own way!

I did learn fairly early in my hosting career that there are easy guests to host and there are difficult guests to host.....Airbnb don't pay me any more to put up with the issues that difficult guests create, so the logical thing is to look for the easy guests and avoid the difficult ones.....does that sound feasible to you!

Many of my guests have been cleanskins, first time users, and they have been great because, it was a new experience and they simply wanted to be a part of it. Issues start to creep in when they have 5 or 6 stays under their belt, know how the platform works and start getting a bit bold.

You may well be right Rowena in that some really demanding reservations turn out to be good guests. But my experience and those of many others here on the CC suggest that  the norm is far different from that.

I love my hosting, I don't want anything to put a dent in it, but I do think I have had a bit to do with my success. I go out of my way to avoid taking on problems!

Cheers......Rob

[Rosemarie9]

My recent entitled guests,  that I mentioned here on this thread, had twenty five positive reviews. On the day of check in, before 9am, I get a message asking me to book a restaurant in town, I thought that was a bit much, but did it, as I gave them the benefit of the doubt thinking their phone might not work. It ends up that they do have an Irish number, but thought it was my duty to make reservations for their entire two night stay. They were tremendously odd, not at all friendly to me, which was very off putting as I normally have a good laugh with my guests. When I found out the wife was rubbishing my apartment layout, to my friend in town, after their visit,  it left me quite miffed. I haven't written a review yet, I thought it must be me, how does someone so rude have so many positive reviews?. He has been pestering me with early morning messages to review him, but I honestly have nothing good to say about them. After snooping a bit online, I find he is a mathematician/ magician, she is a maths professor as well, although her rate my teacher profile was not at all good! Their house looks like it is falling apart, so I now feel a lot better about it not being me slipping as a host! It helps that my guests since have been so lovely leaving gifts and even a caricature of me and the pup, from a teenage guest. It seems like the universe sends me great guests after the bad, to keep me from totally throwing in the towel. Fingers crossed, this weeks are all good!

[Emilia42]

@Robin4 @Rosemarie9 @Rowena29 

I just hosted my worst guest ever ..... 55 reviews.

[Rosemarie9]

Oh wow! I used to worry about the airbnb virgins, recently it is the know it all seasoned guests that are giving me grey hairs. They seem to treat me like a concierge, or worse still a maid. Funnily enough, the guests that are really wealthy, often hosts themselves with amazing properties, are all really considerate, ie, booking the house for an extra day if they are flying in early in the morning, not haggling to get in early for free. Some of the guests that travel on airbnb frequently, and stay in my smaller listings, seem to think they are experts on everything from dining to interior design, and go out of their way to make you feel that they are doing you a huge favour to have them as guests, and give you 'tips' in the private comment section on something totally inconsequential.  I hate passive aggressive types, and I have to keep reminding myself to smile nicely and remember that 260+ mostly glowing reviews must mean I am managing to keep most of my (sane) guests happy. What some people expect for under 75 euro makes me wish I could tell them where to go- and not nicely. Rant over, it is after 5pm, so time for happy grape juice-wine!

[Rowena29]

Oh @Emilia42 

That's SO disheartening! That worries me a bit actually because I've been thinking the rough time I"ve been getting has been because most of mine are newbies - I"ve been holding out for some more experienced guests who are over 27 and  "know the ropes". ( I am definitely an agist host - I have learned that the 18 - 25 y o age group are very judgemental as guests)  I guess this was reinforced by my latest  experienced older  guest - booked for 2 for 13 nights for work ( yay!!!) and took the time to introduce herself ,  explain why she was coming, when she'd arrive, how many rooms she wanted and inject a bit of humour at the same time. The second I read it I knew she'd be a  great guest ( so chanelling @Robin4 here in terms of getting a feel for who's going to work and who isn't).  I'm getting really nervous to hear from you and a couple of other hosts on this thread that the more experienced guests are now  entitled and demanding and are the ones to worry about.

Oh well, we didn't buy the house to airbnb, permanent tenancy is always an option and was our original plan if things get too unworkable.... (if we move down that path I hope we get the noisiest  tenant  with several crying children, who throws lots of weekend parties and has lots of extra cars, just to give karma to our vile neighbour)

[Rowena29]

Hi @Robin4 

Think you might have misunderstood me.

Wasn't for a SECOND implying that I thought you should have given these guests a chance - like I said I'm sure your radar is no doubt spot on.  I was just trying to open people's minds ( ie everyone else reading your thread, not so much specfically you) to the possbility that his questions might have been the result of poor experiences -- that he wasn't necessarily as narcissistic and self entitled as he appeared to be. There's some pretty average hosts out there too who can impact the way guests start to interact with others. 

  I agree with you completely about electing not to host people who you feel might be unpleasant or high maintanence.   I've found the ones who barely communicate to be the most difficult and demanding and they've been a mix of newbies and old hands.  I remember reading on these boards a tactic that someone ( cant' remember who) uses if she has  if she doesn't like the tenor of a guests query: she  says oh by the way, there's road work going on at the moment, you'll have to park your car about 800 m away and carry your luggage down to the house, I hope that won't be a problem.  No booking, but her acceptance rate stays at 100%. 

On a completely different note, when you have a moment could you share with me or with @Sisanda1 your link to the post you created failry recently -early this year I think or late last year -  about managing your listing step by step  - you had lots of screenshots  with arrows pointing out specific things.   I have spent about 2 hours trying to find it ( the search tools are pretty useless aren't they)

I've' given Sisanda1 another one of your links, but this one was better I think. I tried to tag you in my response to her but it didn't appear to work

BTW, is there a way that you can "save" or tag posts that you think you might want to refer back to? if there is I can't find it ( but then again I can't figure how to upload pics either so probably me)

Cheers

Rowena

[Robin4]

@Rowena29 

No I understood what you were saying and I agree with a lot of what you say, but I still come back to the point we have to host in a way that we each feel comfortable with, what is good for some won't be for others.

As far as that post is concerned, unfortunately there is not a facility to archive posts here on the CC and Rowena, I am struggling to remember what I wrote last week let alone a few months ago.

But I do keep all my screenshots and I can compile them again for you if you wish. If you can just be a bit more specific about that post, was it setting a listing up, or managing it once it is set up?

What I might do, I know it might be a bit boring to expeirenced hosts and long time users of the CC but I might start a thread about how to adapt a photo to include on the CC and how to screenshot and include into a post.

Cheers......Rob

PS: a guest who just left said...."I am sorry I broke a plate, it attacked me from the cupboard".....yeah, I am serious, that is exactly what she said! On investigation in fact she actually broke two plates, but I guess she felt the second plate was not badly 'broken' enough, and put it back in the cupboard. 

No offer to pay, which doesn't ruffle my feathers unduly.....but it was the fact that it was the plates fault that did ruffle my feathers!

Guests are lovely, I guess some are just not as lovely as others.......*#//^*!

[Rowena29]

Hi @Robin4 

A recent guest ( 7 blokes)  broke my very favourite platter ( yes I know I should't have something I care about in my rental, but we stay there a lot too and its nice to have some nice things around) . He did let me know and offer to pay, but in the next sentence gave me a long speil about how dangerous our screen doors were - one of them was missing a centre strip which "violated building codes" and was "dangerous" - as a result he and his friends walked into a number of times and hurt themselves - he wasn't complaining just letting me know. This was prior to leaving a review.  The implications were obvious.  I decided not to "see" the inherent threat and repsonded the way I would have without it, which was to say,

"please don't worry about the platter, it was my favourite, but it's only plaster and thank you for your honesty.  Thank you too for letting me know about the screen door. We've never had a problem and nor have any of our other guests so I really appreciate you letting me know. I'll get our glazier straight onto it."  I restrained myself from suggesting that perhaps the TEN  beer cartons  they had comsumed  may have had something to do with their difficulty in seeing the screen doors were closed and didn't mention the screens themselves were now quite badly stretched and had to be reattached (  only a 20 min job for my husband)

On the whole he was a good guest, but I didn't appreciate the inherent threat. Nobody seems to be able to accept responsbility for the own actions any more - everything is always someone elses fault - or in your case, the PLATES  fault.

I'm not as generous as you. I try REALLY hard to see both sides of the coin ( hence my earlier response to you) but I think some people are just rude and entitled and not lovely at all.  

Re your post, it was geared towards completely new hosts and was a step by step account of how to set up your listing = going through booking settings, availability settings, explaining smart pricing etc.   I tried searching the posts by author name and at one point was told Robin4 didn't exist which you'll be happy to hear. All the hits I did get dated back to 2017 - so clearly you haven't posted anything for at least the last 2 years.  You've supplied the link to it a couple of times that I know of in other threads ( can't find them either).  Don't kill yourself over it, I thought you might be able to access it quickly. Was just trying to point a new host in the right direction

Don't worry too much about the photos I'm not a huge poster, just can't understand why I have to provide a "source" and "image descriptions" and   "dimensions" - I"m used to beign able to just click on a pic from my library to upload - I go to do it and think, nah looks too hard, can't be bothered.  

We're  nearly finished renovating our 1903 train carriage at the moment ( a engagement present from my husband from 26 years ago) and I'm about  to attempt assembling the el cheapo Ikea kitchen. Wish me luck!

Cheers

Rowena

[Sarah977]

@Rowena29  I can certainly understand guests asking questions that stem from previous bad experiences at other Airbnbs. But there's ways of asking questions that are just straightforward, as opposed to sounding bizarre and entitled. For instance, Rob's "successfully discouraged" guests could have said "We've unfortunately had some bad experiences in the past with appliances not working well in other Airbnb stays, so, no offense intended, but would appreciate a confirmation that all appliances are in working order." Instead of asking for the brand name of all of them, which is no assurance that they're in working order anyway. Expensive high-end appliances eventually require repair or replacing just like budget-priced ones do,  just not as often.

@Robin4  Thanks for the laugh and kudos for having the guts to send that response. You definitely win "host post of the week" award.

[Rowena29]

Hi @Sarah977 

I”ve tried responding to you about 8 times and my message keeps disappearing mid type – perhaps it’s a higher force telling me to just shut up?!    This is my final attempt…

Sure – I hear what you’re saying and I was in no way disagreeing or criticising Rob for his decision to discourage this guest. I do believe I stated that several times.

I agree that the guest DID sound entitled and his questions did seem a bit off the wall. If he was typing through a mobile device though, most unlikely that he would type in a long winded essay style as you suggest. A lot of people bullet point for a variety of reasons. You yourself recently suggested to a member on these boards that she use very simple language and bullet point when writing to CS. ( which I thought was an excellent suggestion BTW) It’s a lot of people’s style. A lot of my work colleagues bullet point like that, even when sending me a social email. I hate it  - I find it very condescing and superior, but I've had to learn that it's often not the intention of the sender.

I write in essay style (I’m sure you’ve noticed) and THAT really peeves a lot of people, especially people reading  through a mobile device – they want short sharp sentences. I know I’ve had hosts label me as hysterical and high maintenance because of it.    

Of course Rob and any host is completely at lib.erty to discourage whomever they please and it was entertaining to read Rob’s approach. I belly laughed.  I completely understand why he did it. I probably wouldn’t have wanted this guest either.  

However, I began to feel a little uncomfortable when reading lots of subsequent comments. Having had a couple of pretty negative experiences  myself, I could see the relevance of the content of his questions, if not the manner is which he asked them.  I started to feel a bit sorry for him.  He might be ethnic, he might be ex military, he might be very business like. He might have had some dreadful experiences. There are some pretty ordinary hosts out there.

I was just trying to suggest , that odd as he sounded, there  might be a valid reason he asked what he did, in the manner he did. And guests can read these threads too!  (I shudder to think that maybe one of my emails when I first started off as a guest was posted for everyone to comment on and laugh at when I was trying to be naively earnest and friendly.) 

We do all keep talking about Airbnb introducing us to meeting a rich and varied cross section of people from different backgrounds.  Rob flicked him as too high maintenance, but didn’t denigrate him.  That’s all I was trying to say

Cheers! Off to do some more renos and painting.

[Sarah977]

@Rowena29  Isn't that frustrating when your posts disappear after you've spent time typing them? Happened to me many times. 

Online communiction is so easily misconstrued. I totally got that you weren't criticising Rob's response. I also get that we sometimes have to put ourselves in the guests shoes and what we think about their communication or lack of it may not always be correct. I've had guests not reply to messages, and I thought they were just rudely ignoring them, but, in fact, they were off camping with no Wifi connections, etc.

And as you can tell, my writing style is also prose fashion, but I do think that sometimes (especially when dealing with CS) it has to be kept simple. I also get it that some people are simply not very adept at understanding or even considering how their communication comes across to the other party.

What jumped out at me about these message questions from Rob's prospective guests was not that they wrote in bullet-point form, but that what they were asking simply made no sense, nor could they be bothered to say anything nice or personable to Rob, it was just all about them.  The brand names of the appliances are no assurance that they are in working order, what does it matter who uses the washing machine as long as the machine isn't in the guests' space with people going in and out to use it, and how much does laundry detergent cost?- that anyone would even ask that, rather than just bring a little bag of their own or go out and buy some, would be an indication to me, coupled with all their other questions, that these would be hard-to-please guests.

I never mind guests asking questions, nor do I mind answering- I consider it part of my job as a host and I'm sure if I were a guest I'd have a question or two before committing to a booking. My personal experience is that I've only had one guest since I started hosting who sent a list of 20 questions, and she was the only guest who turned out to be high-maintenance.