I am starting to stereotype about guests from a certain city and its not good

[Laura2592]

When I have guests from a certain city in my region (and believe it or not, its not Washington DC) I always cringe a little. These guests have on the whole, given us poor ratings on value or location, left the place messy and asked for a lot of freebies. Now granted its not EVERY single guest, but enough that when I see that location I have a mental "not again."

Its a city with a  lower cost of living than others in this pretty pricey region, so I get the value. And being very urban, I suspect that these guests want a true getaway with no visible neighbors. Which we aren't. I say that in the listing in a few places. But they don't read. I have even captioned pictures showing where the neighbors are visible, but the new ABB layout of photos makes that harder to see.  And the mess and always asking for extras (one asked if we could bring them some beer on the second day of their stay and left snarky private feedback when we didn't) I don't know what accounts for that.

Is there some communication you would suggest when I see a guest who books from this place to allay issues? How do I get over this stereotype that is forming in my brain? I don't like it!

[Elaine701]

@Laura2592 

We get those types from all over. But we've become rather careful at vetting guests to ensure they'll enjoy their stay. Yet we still get them from time to time, which requires pulling out the diplomacy hat. 

In our experience, there's certain nationalities that tend to be truly exemplary guests... clean, orderly, honest, nice... (not always, but most of the time). In this case, I think it's just cultural. People grow up differently in different places. And that can vary from city to city too, not just nationality. 

We do find that generally speaking, it's the bargain hunters that often tend to be the most problematic. Demanding, dishonest, clueless, or irresponsible, often seem willing to take unnecessary risks or go to a lot of trouble to save a couple bucks, ultimately leaving the house messy or causing minor damage... But not always. 

[Emilia42]

@Laura2592 

Not about your stereotype... I already stereotype your entire region 🙂 ... But have you thought about hiring something to take an aerial photo with a drone? Do it sometime when there are no leaves on the trees so you can really see the nearby houses. 

[Laura2592]

@Emilia42 great idea! I will have to look into that. I find drones so annoying I would have never thought of this lol. 

The thing you have to understand about the mid Atlantic is that its pretty much mostly farmland and defunct coal mines. Yes, there are huge cities, and yes, many of the residents have a very specific opinion of themselves, but I grew up in southwest PA poor as dirt. Totally different world than many of my guests. I try to keep an open mind but it doesn't always work. 

[Sarah977]

@Laura2592  If we just stereotype people based upon nothing but our own innate prejudices, that's a little different from being on alert because your own experiences have by and large been the same with a certain demographic. As long as you don't use that stereotyping to just automatically reject a guest, or communicate with them in a different tone as you would with other guests, it can be useful in warding off "bad fit" guests and I don't see it as something bad.

Just as a host might feel they need to do a bit more explaining and ask more questions of a brand new guest with no reviews than a guest with a good Airbnb history.

Or I am reminded of all the posts complaining about Chinese guests flooding the bathroom and the Chinese host's thread explaining why this is. If hosts have had multiple Chinese guests flood the bathroom, it's natural for them to anticipate that they will. That isn't prejudice, it's an assumption based on experience. But if they are made aware of why this happens, then when dealing with future guests of that demographic, they'll be aware of why it would be a good idea to take whatever precautions needed to get the guest to understand that flooding the bathrooom isn't okay before they cause water damage and rotten subfloors.

So I don't know that you can do much or need to feel guilty about thinking "Oh great, another guest from Entitlementville" or "We Don't Bother To Read City" if that has been your overwheming experience with guests from that place. Just deal with them as you would any other guest who made it evident that they were clueless in some respect. And eventually you will likely have other guests from that place who don't fit that stereotype, so you'll be able to think "Okay, they obviously aren't all  like that."

[Kelly149]

@Laura2592  a couple of years ago I had a place in a college town. Very first guests threw a house party for their FRESHMAN daughter and many of her friends, I knew this bc my son (also a student there) knew the daughter and was invited to 'come on over for a beer'. These folks also posted up large yard flags for the opposing school for that weekend's football game and had a son, from another state, "just end up" in town sleeping on the couch...

So after that I had an easy opportunity to say to future guests: "Hey! I'm sure this won't be you, but we had this really weird experience with our last guests, where they did bbb and said ggg and left behind ttt, so I'm just confirming xxx, yyy & zzz so that I know we're all on the same page. You, of course, have been very professional in all your messages so far, so I'm confident you're not that kind of guest, but I'm just being overly cautious. I hope you understand." This was best done in a welcome phone call, rather than text message and I'll never know if I headed off any problems or if they were just better guests, but everyone else that football season was much better behaved.

I have utilized the same strategy with any other questionable groups and if you tell them some of the outlandish things that guests have done and tell them how distressing those things are, then you have a human element of empathy vs a list of house rules.  And PS this was exclusively about things I didn't want them to do (actions) vs things I didn't want them to think/say (reviews), bc reviews shouldn't be manipulated, but encouraging good behavior thru any means necessary is smart. IMO

[Kitty-and-Creek0]

@Kelly149 @Laura2592 

We have the advantage of hosting a wing of our full time residence. However, just in case, I always send a note the day before check-in asking if there are any questions about directions, or the house rules. Please review both and have the directions and both gate combinations in hand before leaving home. I also confirm check in time, and ask for their projected arrival time. I let them know that if they are going to be delayed to let us know so we don't get concerned about them. So far so good!