How to review a careless guest

[Alexandra316]

I had a guest stay last weekend, and they really annoyed me a lot. Most of the problems stemmed from lack of reading: they didn't read the listing, or my check in instructions. I've hosted over 300 guests, and I've never had a guest who's managed to cause so many petty annoyances or had so much trouble with my basic instructions. They had three previous glowing reviews from other hosts. 

I host an apartment that's part of my home. The guests started their stay by showing up an hour early. Not a huge deal, because I'm leaving gaps between stays at the moment due to the pandemic.  However, they then parked in the wrong spot, then tried to enter my private residence. I always lock my door, thank goodness, because my three dogs were inside (they are friendly, but they're all rescues and if they got loose it would be a disaster). Not only does my welcome message provide detailed instructions on how to check in, but my listing check-in guide provides a detailed instruction with pictures. The only other person to ever make this mistake was brand new to Airbnb and there was a significant language barrier. They got checked in, then left their dog alone immediately. It proceeded to scream the entire time they were gone. I don't expect dogs to be silent, and again, I host a lot of people with dogs: this wasn't normal. The guests also shouted and screamed throughout their stay, including late at night. Come checkout time, they checked out an hour late, again without asking for permission. The flat was left clean and tidy,  just really late. 

I'm kind of at a loss of what to say. I'm annoyed by their behaviour, but wondering as a potential host how much you'd want to know. I don't want to write a review based on my annoyance level.  At a stand-alone property, some of these issues would have been less problematic.

This is what I have so far: 

X and her partner, along with their dog, stayed with us, and left our space tidy. Unfortunately, they didn't review my communication or my listing's information so there were some missteps throughout their stay: early check in and late check out without asking, parking in the wrong spot and trying to enter my private home were the big issues.

Too detailed? Not detailed enough?

[Sally221]

If the potential guest is unable to follow clear instructions (road tested by many, many guests) they might well try going into neighbor's place instead of the stand alone listing & cause trouble with those neighbors, especially coupled with a howling dog & late night hollering humans. There is lots of backlash against STRs with many places considering bans so perhaps these guest are best suited to motels & remote locations only. Even then, what if they can't figure out how to access the remote location?

[Alexandra316]

@Sally221Agreed. Thankfully, because of the situation of my house and the Airbnb, the noise is unlikely to disturb neighbours, but going to the wrong house all together may cause an issue. I would be pretty angry if I found some stranger trying to enter my home: I was mad enough that they were trying to enter my home. 

[Sarah977]

@Charles224   What are you talking about, "hosts do not get to read these before they book"???  All of your comments here make the assumption that everyone uses IB. I require all guests to send a Booking Request. before accepting, I definitely look at that guest's reviews, as well as the reviews they have left for prior hosts. Rating low or saying no, you wouldn't host them again doesn't do non-IB hosts a bit of good,either- we can't see guest's star ratings, nor whether hosts have given them a thumbs down. 

All we have to go on is the reviews and communication with the guests. "Vague" reviews for bad guests are cowardly and useless.

[Alexandra316]

@Sarah977 @Charles224 I do use instant book, and I still want to see accurate written reviews. I've cancelled instant bookings before due to poor reviews (not often, but a couple of times).

I can see guest ratings and the benign or even good written reviews with low stars make me crazy. How does that help? If they were bad enough to warrant low stars, I wish other hosts would be honest enough to say why. I actually called another host on it once: the review said  "Great guests!' but they had two stars for cleanliness and rule following. They had checked out like 4 hours late and left the place a disaster. "Great guests!" indeed. One wonders what it would take to achieve "Horrible guests!". Arson? 

[Sarah977]

@Alexandra316  My experience has been that whenever I see a review that says "Great guests!" if I look at the reviews that host has left for their other guests, they all say "Great guests!"