the very first question asked of the guest in the review is...

[Lawrene0]

Hello, fellow hosts!

Last week I was a guest for three nights. Not keen on travel right now, but I had to for work. 

It was interesting to see, though, what guests are asked these days.

So, first of all, the stay went very well. The host sent daily messages asking whether everything was okay, and I replied as soon as I could every day that, yes, everything was fine. Lots of thanking each other on both sides. The usual. 🙂

I opened the review link at the end of the stay. The first question was,

"Did you feel unsafe during this stay? We would like to know what happened."

Good lord. Shouldn't I have notified someone immediately if I had felt unsafe? Why would I leave it to the review? Do they want me to be that sort of guest? 

Anyway, the second question was all about whether the host was misleading or I had any issues.

Screenshots of both are below. I took them because I was appalled that the accent is on the negative. "Unsafe", "misleading" -- what's that all about? 

In my own case, I am waiting for a review from my own guest a week ago, a local who thought I should have notified her that she might hear rumbles of thunder in the distance during her stay. Oh goody. Now she can report that she felt unsafe because she didn't think to check her weather app.

I feel like this is a trap. I feel like there are enough traps with the reviews that we don't need another one. 

The rest of the questions were about whether the amenities were provided, etc., but I have seen those before. It was just the first two questions that were different from last time I was a guest. Just to be clear, this was not the "survey" at the end. This was the start of the review, before the stars, before the written portion.  Here are the screenshots:

[Alexandra316]

@Lawrene0 I stayed somewhere recently too, and I noticed that, plus how long the review process is now. Every time I stay somewhere it seems to get longer. By the end of the year, maybe you'll need to write a novel about your stay.

[Ian-And-Anne-Marie0]

@Lawrene0 

O M G 

Lets now set the tone of your review....

[Anonymous]

@Lawrene0  I'm guessing this is part of the plan for how Airbnb is going to "verify" 7 million listings:  crowd-source the process through leading questions.

It's been a while since I used Airbnb as a guest, but the last times I do remember being asked in the review process if specific amenities were present. It felt odd being put in the role of inspector when all I had to work with was hindsight. (How am I supposed to know if there was a hairdryer? I don't have hair!)

[Alexandra316]

@Anonymous That's been there for a while: I got an odd message this morning from Airbnb asking me to verify that I don't have a dishwasher, because apparently guests have been saying I do. If I do, I've never seen it. 

[Lawrene0]

@Alexandra316 , my guests have reported, apparently, that the treehouse has a washer and dryer. I suppose they are counting the muddy river as the washer and a tree branch as the dryer? Generous of them.

Yes, @Anonymous , guests are the most inept inspectors! This includes me when I am a guest. That same review asked me whether there was a pool. I didn't see one, but that means nothing. Thanks to my hours,  I was never at the listing in daylight. I don't care about pools. Was too tired to even look at the back yard. I ticked "I don't know." Hope that was the right answer!

[Emiel1]

@Alexandra316 

I regularly get a message like this: 'Do you have a garden ? Some guest indicates you have a garden". (I have 2 small flowerpots, hanging at the walls of the small courtyard)

[Cormac0]

When I was a child we had a neighbour,  who lived some distance from my home, they had no garden, but they did have a small Flower box, and the local kids gave the boy that lived in the house the nickname "John the gardener"

Some people have wicked sense of humour...

[Michelle53]

@Alexandra316    I think there must be some AI scanning of review text, because I got a question about a coffee maker shortly after a guest reported I didn't have one (which I don't say I have under my amenities, in the place where the sink is that I don't call a kitchen, because it only has a microwave).

[Helen350]

Indeed, @Michelle53 ! - When I get the "Does your place have a coffee maker?"  question, I skip.... I have a French Press...... I do not call that a coffee maker, lest some Keurig/Pod machine loving guest should complain that  a French Press is not a proper coffee  maker.....

Ticking all these boxes re minute details of amenities leaves us more open to dissatisfied customers who will find us not as expected!

[Michelle53]

@Helen350    I recently  added a French Press (stainless steel, not glass). It got some honorable mentions, so a good addition. I will not, however, add anything that can be termed "coffee maker" since that just adds to my cleaning and cost load, and I can't abide the disposable pods (even the supposedly biodegradable ones). 

[Huma0]

@Helen350 whom I can't seem to tag for some reason.

@Michelle2137 

No, a French Press is not a coffee machine. It is apparently a 'dangerous contraption' as one delightful guest described it. The same guest who expected me to cook her and her husband three meals a day even though breakfast isn't even listed at my Airbnb.

So, she would have been the first to click the option of saying she felt unsafe at my listing, simply because she did not know how to use a French Press (and I did give her instructions). She also described my place as dangerous because I had 'building materials' lying around. The building materials were in fact a few cans of chalk paint and paintbrushes that I was temporarily storing in boxes on a bench to the side of the very wide hallway having emptied a cupboard. I had told her and apologised for the clutter in advance. In her feedback, she claimed that I had only told her right before she arrived. Not true. It is not my fault that the guest only read the message two weeks later. Still, my place must be really 'unsafe' and not as described.

PS I also have two coffee makers which she could have used instead of the offending French Press.

[Kat162]

@Helen350We have a French Press too and like you, I skip that question for the same fear of Keurig lovers!

[Maia29]

@Anonymous  Funny how I signed up to do the virtual walkthrough with Airbnb of my unit to be verified with the promise of a new verified badge and two months later still don't have the badge.

I don't care for those misleading questions, setting up guests to say something negative.

[Emiel1]

@Lawrene0 

All guests can now answer the question like this:

"I only felt unsafe because IF something should happen, Airbnb Support can not be reached."