Airbnb, themselves, has made this an even more sticky situation with their SUPERHOST ranking. Just recently, we had guests who had booked over a year ago for the entire month of January. In late December, they changed their reservations down to two weeks. Due to their late change, we lost out on renting the rest of the month with the exception of a couple of 3-day rentals. (Typically in January, since we are in Florida, we have the entire month booked.) If we lose the SUPERHOST ranking, then if someone uses SUPERHOST as a limiter, we are left out. Because of sour grapes.
When these folks arrived for their two-week visit, they picked on everything. We had spent a lot of money on baseboard heating at the end of 2017. We are so glad we did because we have had one of the coldest Januarys on record. They complained about the noise the heaters made (to us and even in their review.) They didn't like the "clicking." They also said the weather was bad, the bed was uncomfortable, the recliner was hard to close (it is - but smaller recliners are all hard to close) and there was no shampoo. They gave us our first "4" rating - saying our place was not a good value in over 2 1/2 years.
The entire time they were there, whenever we saw them they complained about something or another. (My husband called it their "Morning whine.") Our rental is on the back corner of our property. So we do see guests more often than we would if the location was remote.
All that said, they left the cottage in fine shape. HOWEVER, for us as hosts, the pain and suffering was brutal.
I think there should be some kind of host code - to warn off other hosts. Something that a guest would not think was bad and yet it would warn us of potential issues. Maybe a separate star rating with notes for HOST-ONLY viewing (both the stars and the notes.) Of course, it would have rules, one of them being, be fair, no ranting. If I were to review these folks, I would probably give them a 4 and note that they were never happy and required a lot of attention. Then if they go anywhere else, hosts can decide if that is an issue for them.
The bottom line is 99.9.5% of the time we have awesome guests who absolutely LOVE our little cottage. Maybe we should focus on that. But when something like this happens, where we continually bent over backward for these folks and their thankyou was to give us a 4, complain about the weather and no shampoo...(and really fussed at us in the non-public note) it really took the wind out of our sails. The only thing that saved us from their attitude, behavior, and review was the next guests absolutely loved the place and couldn't wait to return.
**One side note regarding the shampoo - we have given up trying to provide shampoo to guests. They all seem to have their own preferences and we were spending too much money trying to guess what they might like. We do provide Tom's bar soap, pump hand soap, laundry detergent, dryer sheets, dishwashing detergent, coloring books and markers as well as their red and white bottles of wine, wrapped licorice, coffee pods, tea, and a rubber pelican for a souvenir. (our place is Pelican Cottage.) I'm not trying to boast or anything - it's just when someone complains about something we don't provide - I get defensive.