Hi All
Having a lot of trouble removing a guests review which conflicts with content policy.
We recently encountered a guest who:
Broke house rules by smoking on the property (cigarette butts were found).
Left rubbish in all 7 bedrooms and bathrooms, including tissues, wrappers, and other waste.
Scattered a deck of cards in the living area with rubbish and left excess rubbish between cinema room seats and floor.
Overflowed both Large red bins, despite being informed they were empty at check-in. We had to urgently arrange paid bin removal so the next guests had a place to dispose of waste.
Left a full kitchen of dirty dishes and improperly stacked items in the dishwasher, most of which had to be re-washed.
After checkout, we issued a $400 additional cleaning and rubbish removal charge and here’s the critical part:
Airbnb reviewed the evidence and agreed the condition was unacceptable, even covering $200 of the charge themselves, confirming our claims were valid.
Yet, the guest left a misleading review, portraying the home as needing only minor cleaning and implying unfair treatment. We submitted a request for the review to be removed, referencing multiple clear violations of Airbnb’s Review Policy:
Irrelevant content (eczema flare-up added post-stay with no prior mention).
Retaliatory tone (only raised concerns after charges were applied).
Biased and misleading descriptions of the mess and damage and no mention of smoking or breaking house rules.
A clear contradiction to Airbnb’s own actions (Airbnb paid part of the charge, yet allows a review to criticise us for the exact same charges).
Despite escalating the matter and highlighting that Airbnb's own support team confirmed the home was left in poor condition, they refused to remove the review.
Why this matters:
It seems guests can violate house rules (like smoking), leave a property in an unacceptable state, and then use the threat of a poor review as leverage to avoid accountability while hosts who enforce fair charges are left exposed.
We’re sharing this with other hosts because Airbnb’s current review moderation system appears inconsistent, even when their own support actions validate a host’s concerns. If you’ve experienced something similar, let’s continue raising it.
Happy to answer any questions
