Not nice guests! Fear of negative reviews from guests!

[John0]

Most of the time we receive amazing guests whose presence encourages us to continue hosting but now and then we receive guests who are just pain from the movement they enter your house or sometimes from the time they reserve your listing. If you speak to such guests about their behavior, they realize that they might receive a negative review and often those are the exactly guests who don't give you sincere reviews. My question, how to deal with such situations? 

[John0]

There is that fear of negative review which stops you to be honest to such guests about their behavior. 

[Tuula0]

Not so afraid of negative reviews, I believe dishonest ones are more harmful.  Even too positive reviews may raise unfounded images in some guests to be.  Or then blaming host for your mistakes like not following the instructions how to reach the place or meet host.  I tend to give very short, non-committant reviews of guests that were not found very pleasant - which should benefit also future hosts if they can read between the lines.

[John0]

My question is not about my being honest when reviewing them, rather it is about being honest/strict to them while they are staying with us. It never feels easy to confront guests who aren't behaving good. 

[Helga0]

Unfortunately, in the new forum, I do not see your profile or listing. Do you rent a room or shared space? 

As I'm a on-site host, I speak with them, otherwise it would not be possible to live together. In a calm way, matter of factly, how things have to be done to work in my small space. If you clear the air you might get cooperation and even a good review in the end. If you let things fester, you'll have a hard time and still get a bad review.

[John0]

I rent private rooms in shared apartment. I am also on-site host. 

I have hosted more than 1000 guests in last 4 years so I do have a bit more bad experiences even though all together it would be less than 4%. Most common problem, guest have first time experience with Airbnb and haven't read all the information and comes with different expectations for example expects full apartment even though it is clearly mentioned private room. At arrival finds things different than what s/he expected and then things only get worse from that point. They do pretend that everything is fine but you can see that guest isn't really happy about situation. 

[Laura2]

Last summer I had guests who freaked out because there were insects in the house - and they left after one night. I thought they were overreacting (in the summer insects sometimes fly in) and we argued about it. We never found agreement. I suggested that I don't review them - and they do not review our property, as I don't want anyone to talk about bugs in my otherwise five-star reviews. Well, I guess that was the only thing we agreed about. 🙂

[John0]

There have been more than few times that guests booked private rooms but freaked out at arrival as they were expecting full apartmen and left with in hours after checking in. Twice airbnb managed to convince me that I should refund them because later guests said whatever they could say in order to get money back. 

[Leona0]

If it's not pests like cockroaches or poisonous spiders, I don't see why anyone should freak out about summer insects flying in from the window.

I was lucky enough not to host problematic guests but this thread made me a bit paranoid now, since you never really know.

[Rick0]

Just a note about flying insects....it's extremely offputting to guests from countries where there are "fly screens" or window screens on every window....People not used to seeing flying insects indoors may be horrified by what you consider to be a common occurrence..  In the Southern United States it would be impossible to get a good night's sleep without window screens to prevent mosquitoes from attacking you all night...I simply would not stay in a place during the summer that didn't have screens on the windows or air conditioning...In many areas, flying insects are considered disease vectors...

[Mathew0]

@Laura: Oy vey! This fall, the entire nashville area was hit by an unstoppable horde of ladybugs- obviously completely harmless. But even after vigorous duct taping, replacing whether stripping, spraying with maximum strength RAID 2-3 times etc, there was just no stopping it. Luckily, I had primarily *sane* guests who understand that crap happens and didn't mind a few lady bugs walking around. But I had been worried the whole time about someone freaking out ( as though they're going to get a 5-star hotel room for 1/3 the price of the nearest motel 6).

[Penny1]

How cute a swarm of ladybugs!!!

In Australia there are a whole list of insects, that are highly venimus and not so cute, but most of them are North of Sydney and don't make it down as far as Melbourne!

[Peter0]

My feeling is that really bad guests are fewer than 1% but perhaps 5-10% are guests I don't want to see again.  They all get thumbs down from me (does Airbnb actually do anything with the thumbs down?).  John, like you I know immediately if they are going to be trouble!  The worst is when they sulk or pout but say nothing until they pour out mean thoughts in their reviews.

[John0]

@Peter0 i agree it is around 1% who aren't good guests and less than 10% who I don't want to host again for any reasons. I think airbnb should put those stars on guests also are remove stars from hosts also. 

[Maxine0]

@John0 @Peter0 - one of the most common themes about issues arising with guests is the fact that they simply do not take the time to read the detail - whether the descriptive and miss vital things such as it's a room in a private home, or an apartment where the host lives above (as in my case) etc etc and therefore most times disappointment guests feel is their own vision of what they thought they were paying for and the reality of what they get -

Most often it is the airbnb 'first-timers' who take the least time to read details. I lose count of the amount of guests who say can I park outside - when the opening line of my listing includes 'traffic-free' street. Guests even contact me when enroute and ask me for the address -  so they haven't even bothered to read the itiniary and have set off without even looking up the address or how to get here. Daft or what?

Guests rarely say anything to your face - but instead might make a comment in a review or give you poor star rating much of it based on their own lack of attention to detail. I am lucky to live in a superb location and tend to get 5 stars across the board - location, communication, cleanliness, accuracy and then a 4 star for value (despite parking vouchers, free wifi, free breakfast provisions, own come and go as you please entrance/exit, free use of own kitchen, high quality everything) which simply means, we loved everything but we'd like to have it even cheaper despite it already being 50% cheaper than a hotel in the same area without all the extras. go figure!

But if the stats are est 1% unpleasant guests, 4 to 5% we wouldn't welcome back for a variety of reasons - then it's not at all a bad average.

Addressing your original question John - if a guest is behaving badly in situ, you just need to have a quiet word and ask them not to do whatever it is that's irking you. Reviews work both ways - and as others have said, hosts can read between the lines. In a similar conversation a host suggested a host code such as simply stating XYZ stayed at my property for X days in X month, X year - simply as a warning to other hosts that you are not recommending the guest, there were issues but not ones of significant damage etc to warrant saying anything else.

I have used that once but it was a guest that never left a review anyway (I knew they wouldn't anyway as the reason for use of stating the dates only was due to their very selfish nature, lack of consideration like going out every night and leaving every single light on and leaving my place dirty beyond reason)

So perhaps we need to spread the word amongst hosts to just state the dates they stayed as a signal that the guests were not very considerate or respectful. What do you think?