Please help with review for a guest

[Inna22]

Guest booked my duplex up for two nights. Another one was staying in the lower level apartment. The duplex guest started to complain on the last night that the lower level guests was smoking pot and she was smelling it specifically in the sun room (semi open space). It was coming through the vents. I explained to her that there were no interconnecting vents. She insisted it was them and claimed she mainly did not want to be charged my smoking penalty but also could not use the sunroom her entire stay. I called the downstairs guest who swore he did not smoke. I relayed that to the upstairs person. She insisted they did smoke. I told the downstairs guest that I will have to go in to check it out. My husband and I barged in on the poor people at 9 pm to find a pristine apartment and my drains cleaned out for me (we had floods in Chicago and water started to come up). I could not have felt worse. I actually upgraded them to a bigger place the next morning but mainly because the water kept coming up so there are no hard feelings there. Should anything be mentioned in the review for the upstairs guest? She did complain a lot about other things during her stay, some legitimate some not. All complaints came on the last night so she was either fishing for a discount or did not want to be blamed for things when she left. She obviously was not looking for it to be remedied for her. She just left a review for me. I doubted it is a praise. 

[Linda108]

@Inna22   It appears that you had a disgruntled guest or a scamming guest.  You probably would not host this guest again so your review could be something like, "X stayed for 2 nights and expressed multiple complaints during her stay.   I would suggest that she would be served in a hotel setting."  Give a 3 star rating unless she left the place in shambles.  When you see her review, your response will not be aimed at her, but aimed at future or potential guests so short and sweet and professional and do not engage in a long defensive diatribe.

[Inna22]

@Linda108 in a stunning turn of events, she’s just sent a request for another stay!

[Helen427]

@Inna22 

Always enjoy your contributions here in CC.

You sound like you've had a slightly challenging time.

 If the guest who has requested another stay was otherwise polite, clean, tidy & friendly she sounds like she was genuinely concerned.

It's easy enough for the smell of pot to carry through windows from nearby properties as well as through ceiling/ wall gaps. 

It's her right, and a credit to her,  to pass that information on to you as a concerned guest.

Maybe you could focus on those positive aspects of her in your review.

I used to have a neighbour who was upstairs where I used to live & the smell constantly wafted through, stank out the curtains and  things in general which was most annoying.

thankfully the tenant moved out before I did so I was able to rid much of the smell after the cleaning curtains.

All the best for her return visit 

[Sam397]

I personally try to give people a break when it comes to my reviews so unless its something thats just blatant I dont say anything. That said I would not say anything about the complaining in her review since you said some were valid complaints. Hopefully since you did check into her complaints she will do the same for you and wont give you a negative review herself.   

[Anonymous]

@Inna22   I'd honestly be much more worried about the guests who were intruded upon downstairs than the PITA whining upstairs. I have no doubt that you handled everything as kindly and professionally as possible (and I presume you were wearing appropriate protective gear while entering the guests' space during a freaking pandemic), but still, these people had to clean drains in a stranger's flooded apartment, field accusations of drug use, get intruded upon in their privately rented space, and presumably repack their bags to relocate. If these guests didn't happen to be easygoing people, their experience would be prime material for those Airbnb Hell newspaper columns, even if they ultimately got a free upgrade. I'd be working harder on massaging these merciful guests than reviewing the other guest.

That said, since you say that the upstairs guest had some legitimate complaints, I wouldn't want to  review in a way that seems to imply that you can't be bothered by guest complaints. That would give the wrong impression, since you're a host that really cares and wants to keep all of your guests happy even when they have conflicting testimonies. 

I would suggest reviewing in such a way that both alerts prospective hosts and also flatters the sensibilities of your preferable guests:  "Becky might not have been the ideal fit for this inner-city home environment, but I appreciated her willingness to communicate her concerns so that I could make an effort to resolve them.  I was pleased that she was comfortable enough with her stay that she requested to extend it."

And then, of course, I would reject the extension. And if her name isn't actually Becky, I'm still not sure I'd change the text.