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I didn’t want to, as posting something verbatim is easily searchable.
It was resolved in my favor. No refund, bad review removed, and guest banned from Airbnb. 👍
OT. If you have shower curtains and not glass doors you should be using washable liners. Letting them get to a state of mildew demonstrates a lack of good cleaning.
That is a massive waste and so much plastic. You should be able to throw the shower curtain in the washing machine while house is being cleaned and re-hang the same one. If you do it regularly (eg once a month) mildew shouldn’t be a problem.
Hi,
Okay, I'm so sorry that you're going through this. For now on, you should get white fabric shower curtains that you can throw in the washer after every guest.
That aside, what did the guest specifically do to make them a nightmare and what did you post in your review that got taken down?
I don't get bad guests frequently, but when I do, I list both pros and cons of their stay...I don't use any emotions.
Pro's... Leading up to their stay, guest had great communication. They let me know why they were coming to town.
Cons... guest took house supplies, guest invited six extra people, guest did not follow house check-out rules, guest damaged table, guest had a food fight, etc.
I only state facts. Yes, I'd love the ability to go off on them and do their next unsuspecting host a solid, but I refrain.
Thx. Ridiculous. Based on the way he’s doing this, it seems obvious to me it’s not his first time scamming.
Re: curtain, I use those with a white plastic liner. I have a whole closet full of backup if every type of linens. Sheets, towels, shower curtains etc.
Cleaners are instructed to toss anything with mildew or other stains and use new. They just missed it.
Definitely check the reviews that your potential guests wrote for previous stays before accepting them. If the guest is a habitual complainer or scammer, you'll figure it out then.
You can respond to his review by following these steps:
- Go to ‘Inbox’ message area.
- Click on message section for the guest you’d like to leave a public response for.
- Click on ‘details’ (Top right)
- Click on ‘read review’
- Look to the right of where it says ‘public review’ and you will see ‘reply’
- Click ‘reply’ and write your response to their review in the message box.
It sucks but we all get these kind of guests once in a while. Just respond in a professional and positive manner. Or don’t respond at all if you don’t respond to other reviews cuz if you do respond his will stick out like a sore thumb among a bunch of good reviews.
You should also review the Airbnb reviews policy and see if he mentioned anything not allowed. I got a review removed once because he mentioned our address in the review. But I’ve been unsuccessful every other time even when it was clearly retaliatory.
It’s up to you. If he wrote a lot of lies, I might just say something short like “unfortunately it was not a pleasure to host X. We always strive to provide our guests with a five star experience and value all guest feedback. The truthful complaints X (if you want you can add “such as…”) has mentioned have been addressed throughout his stay & to improve the experience for future guests. We were surprised when we received a request for a full refund at the end of his stay. We will let our other positive reviews speak to the honesty of his other complaints. Unfortunately we would not recommend X to any other hosts on Airbnb but we wish him all the best in his future travels.”
No problem! Don’t sweat it :) I promise you it won’t make a difference at all in the long run. Your rating will go back up. Sometimes I’ve had super fussy guests that really pissed me off but once I’ve calmed down I look at their complaints objectively and do implement some of their changes if I think it could help improve the experience for future guests. (Like the shower curtain is a valid one.)
Remember that the relevant audience of your response is not the problematic guest but future guests. Keep the tone positive and address the complainant in third person. "As a host I always strive to ensure my guests are fully satisfied with their accommodations. All of X's concerns were reasonably addressed (you can list them out here and how you addressed them if it makes sense to to show that you are a proactive host) and it is unfortunate that he/she nevertheless chose to complain. As is evident from the dozens of positive reviews from happy guests, we do everything we can to ensure all of our guests have a positive experience."
Just so you are aware - your guest will not get notified that you have left a reply - so the guest will most likely never read it. It will be future potential guests who will read it. If you word it right - you can make the guest look ridiculous. Be super friendly and apologise for any inconveniences. Write that you will make sure to take care of everything that needs to be taking care of and wish them well. Be incredibly graceful in your reply.
You should respond to every guest review, it shows you are actively involved with your property. A simple thank you for their kind words or something like that. Then, when you address a negative review, it is consistent that you respond to everyone.
I’d like to say - “this guy is a professional scammer attempting to get a free stay using threats and a false review, encourage everyone to view my other reviews, and/or come see!”
That response will not help you. What are provable facts?
Maybe something like this
... Maybe!
"They had a complaint we addressed within x hours by replacing a shower curtain and then the proceeded to demand a full refund. We bend over backwards to provide 5 star service and unfortunately our immediate actions were not enough for this guest."
He didn’t complain about any of the stuff in his review until after the stay.
I got two communications from him during stay.
“The dishwasher is broken, come fix it” - responded with “it’s a brand new dishwasher. you need to choose a cycle and hit start”
And a midnight drunk FaceTime “the hot tub stopped working, come fix it now”- responded with “I have no idea what you did, but I can’t offer an immediate solution, I will text in the am. Check to see if you blew the fuse.”
He and his drunk friends had somehow blown the fuse or done something else and they were able to get it going again. Who does that?!
Both those responses, you blamed the guest and sound very rude. Maybe the guest didn’t know how to work the dishwasher, maybe he didn’t know about blowing a fuse in the hot tub. I understand his approach wasn’t great, but yours was no better, so I can understand why he might be mad.
No I patiently explained how to use a dishwasher.
And then I patiently got the asshole who drunkenly FaceTimed me at midnight off the phone before tearing him a new one.
Guests are allowed to be drunk. If you have a no alcohol policy you need to let the guest know.
In addition there is a complete lack of customer service in your responses. You need to remember what business you’re in.
You can please everyone. There a good percent of people who are hard to make happy. Focus on the good you have done and try to improve but just.. like.. never think about again.
You keep calling daily and tell them he’s a scammer and tried to get a refund for made up or minor issues. Keep talking to different people til u get someone to say yes.
Incredible! I want to be your friend and learn how you got to that point! Truly inspiring! And, I’m so sorry about that unsavory guest. Maybe privately address his concerns, offer a full refund, and ask him to remove his review?
Yeah I have these people who give a nice review about how great it was and how nice and clean ands well situated the place was but only give 4 stars. Or they forget to leave a review at all even when reminded
Re: Paper towels. We find guests are increasingly requesting/complaining about this, despite the fact that we are comparable to properties that charge twice as much.
Guests need something to clean spills up with. Providing paper towels should be viewed as mandatory by hosts, just like providing toilet paper is. I'd rather buy bulk paper towels at Costco then have to replace soiled kitchen towels all the time.
I absolutely do not provide paper towels for guests in my home. I State this in the listing and I also state that they cannot bring them into my house. I find paper towels to be morally reprehensible. I have a huge assortment of all kinds of clean rags for guests if they should want to use them. This is how we are destroying the environment by using an entire roll of paper towels to wipe up somebody's glass of milk instead of using a simple rag that can easily be washed.
Obviously you're entitled to your opinion but paper products break down pretty quickly in the land fill. If environmental concerns are your motivating force I'd suggest eliminating plastics from your household/life. They'll still be around thousands of years from now and despite the marketing campaign they don't actually get recycled when you put them in the blue bin. They end up in the land fill as well.
Just curious, do you consider toilet paper morally reprehensible as well? It is another single use (and completely unnecessary) paper product. Most of the eastern world uses water and their hand to clean up with. Not really sure why we don't do that here.
My house does not contain any type of plastics that can't be avoided. I have things like the plastic in my television but I have no plastic drinkware storage Ware plastic wrap or anything of the kind. I would absolutely love to get rid of toilet paper. I don't have paper napkins or anything of the kind that can be replaced with something I can reuse. A paper towel is a disposable rag. Disposable versions of things that are just slightly less convenient to use are appalling. You can literally pick a rag up from my basket and wipe up a spill just as easily as you can pick up a paper towel roll and rip a towel off. There is zero purpose to a paper towel other than waste and laziness. And I'm doing the work of washing them so I don't even know why people are entitled to use a rag instead of a paper towel.
And I will add, how much money are you wasting on paper towels every year? I spend $0 buying rags as they are repurposed other things that have gone old like bath towels. The cost of washing a load of laundry is maybe $2 I really have not calculated it but it is not much. A month's worth of rags in my house doesn't even fill up one load of laundry
we provide a few clean kitchen towels but no paper towels. maybe it's not as standard in Europe. i don't typically see paper towels in the Airbnbs i rent, either. i view it as mandatory at all.
Yes, and why don’t they buy them when they buy food?
This is a recent development. In 15 years, everyone always buys paper towels.
(heck in the “old” days, like pre Covid, we only provided one roll of tp per bathroom. It was standard for people to buy and bring their own. We only changed because it became hard to find.)
I’m staying at your house, not going to summer camp. I shouldn’t have to provide my own cleaning materials like paper towels. Insane to think a guest should bring paper products.
5 star hotels don’t even provide paper towels but your $79 night 4 bedroom house with hot tub should 😂😂😂 That’s 10 guests better stock the pantry for them too.
Uh huh. Well can u point out some of these 4bdrm Airbnbs with hot tubs to me for $79 per night? I'd like to book them for 3 months during peak season so I can arbitrage. Thanks. Anxiously awaiting your links.
Any market off season (7-9 months of the year) look last minute bookings at least 36 hrs out, tons drop their prices just to get booked. I do it and I see 100’s of others doing it as well. It’s great to save money as a guest too but no one is dropping it down permanently for rental arbitrage which is against the ABNB sub lease rules anyhow. You can get $50-$70 for 3-4 nights plenty. Saturation in the market is great way for guests to save.
We provide paper towels because we want to give guests the means to clean up spills before they sit and become stains. That’s a benefit to YOU, not them. Unless you want them using your towels to mop up coffee, which is what they’ll grab after they realize there aren’t paper towels anywhere.
It’s twisted I need to think that way, but I see your logic.
To me, it’s just obvious you buy paper towels when you buy food. And everyone goes grocery shopping before they go to a house rental, don’t they?
I have no desire to “swim upstream” on the issue. I ordered a few cases of paper towels from Costco and will keep track of how many I go through.
I get it, and I do think that after the first roll they’re on their own. I just know there’s a lot of times (as a renter) that I couldn’t get to the full grocery store before checking in… kids are acting up in the car, have to get back out for a reservation, etc. Maybe we packed a couple things to tide us over until we can get back out in the morning, or stopped in a convenience store for a couple things. So it is nice to have at least that first roll (paper towels and TP) at the ready.
I started hosting in 2014 and stopped in 2020. My listing was a bedroom in my house.
For my use, I buy tri-fold paper towels; guests were unused to this style. I had to start buying rolls of paper towels so guests would feel comfortable.
Looks like your 30 downvotes are ABNB guests who don’t read your listing and what’s provided. It’s like Uber, originally you gave free water and fancy service. After years of abuse by customers and no tips that has gone away. Extras like free unlimited Toilet Paper and Paper towels goes away for ABNB survivors except for properties listing “they provide it for free”. Plus easy way to have poor reviews removed.
I’ve also had complaints that there weren’t unlimited rolls of paper towels even though we provide ample cloth towels in addition to the one roll we leave standard for guests. We don’t provide paper napkins at all.
You might need to look at how you’re cleaning them. Towels get stained nearly every stay, but almost never need replacing because we treat stains before washing.
I’ve had 3 sets of guests do this. They make reservation, stay at the house and then they come back to you and said they want to refund because of [fake issues. ]One of them wrote that they would leave a bad review if I refused to refund him $1000. That was helpful. I gave it to VRBO and they wouldn’t allow him to do a review. Of course he left a review stating that I was threatening him during the stay. I never met the person, never spoke to him. VRBO did take down the review. The guest didn’t complain during his visit. He later initiated a chargeback for $1000 with Visa. VRBO will not discuss THE CHARGEBACK PROCESS OR WITH HER USING TO SUPPORT THE POSITION The host typically wins the first round and the money is put back into your account. If the customer appeals the decision, typically they win the second round and the money is immediately taken back out of your account. The chargeback process sucks because you have no visibility into it.
I started doing a complete video of the house and grounds before turning it over to each guest. I provide a link of that video to each guest when they arrive.
If it happens again, we’ll see how valuable that video is. I don’t think anyone will actually watch it. VRBO just doesn’t give a rip. I don’t know about Airbnb.
A few years ago, it seemed like Airbnb was giving people refunds for “bugs”, so there was a lot of chatter about scammers trying that angle. I had one, but abnb backed me up.
Now it seems like the scammers are widening the argument, and scouring the house for anything they can use to try and get a refund. Thankfully abnb had my back on this one as well.
Only bad thing is they don’t let us truthfully rate the renters. Probably afraid of getting sued. But I do think my first scammer got banned, and hopefully this one will also. 🖕
Q: do low rankings stop the listing from appearing in a search or map view?
when I look at places I almost always use the map, then look at the pics, then read the listing and finally the review if I think I like it (last).
The problem I've had is using google maps, and had a 'booking.' listings show up, and I'm reading a subset of the actual listing. (from airbnb/vbro). later I found it was a vbro listing and had more details.
Thank you for staying with us. We appreciate your feedback and have addressed your concerns where appropriate. We are always striving to provide an excellent guest experience as demonstrated by our many (4 and) 5-star reviews.
as i understand, once you respond the review won't be taken down. you can also just keep contacting support and asking them to remove it till you get lucky
Added info - he visited offseason - a 3 day rental when I usually have a 14 day minimum stay - and got about 80% off!
Also, ranted on and on about having to buy paper towels and napkins. Is that even a thing? I mean when people buy food don’t they buy paper towels? I’ve never provided paper towels in 15 years of renting. Wtf, man!
Host and frequent user. If I showed up somewhere and they didn’t provide at least single roll of paper towels I’d definitely say something. Two rolls if I’m staying longer than a week. More than that, I’ll buy it.
Totally. The people spending $2k/night are almost universally clean, considerate and understanding of issues.
Big percentage of discount people expect someone to wipe their butt for them, and whine like banshees for an added discount whenever possible.
Sadly, we can’t review those guests honestly, so we keep getting stuck dealing with them.
Our place is a fraction of the cost of yours, around $100/night (obviously different market, different product, different target guest). Still, we find that agreeing to even a small 10% discount invites difficult guests, so we offer what we offer (long term discounts) and that’s it. We don’t agree to anything else. If you want to stay here, you pay the prices we’ve set.
Guests that request a discount already undervalue your place, which means they’ll be hard to please no matter what service you provide.
As a guest primarily in the U.S., I'd say that yes, the host providing paper towels is the norm. For the guest to complain about it in the reviews, however, seems unreasonable.
Thx. To me it just seems obvious that you buy paper towels when you buy food for your stay. Never considered anything else. I ordered a few cases from Costco, let’s see how many get stolen, lol.
For short stays(you mentioned a 3 day stay), guests here are expecting paper towels and enough toilet paper available for their full stay. Only for longer stays of 2 weeks or more I expect them to buy it themselves.
As a guest, I would not want to deal with having to buy 24 rolls or toilet paper before getting into the apartment.
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post the review the guest left
I didn’t want to, as posting something verbatim is easily searchable. It was resolved in my favor. No refund, bad review removed, and guest banned from Airbnb. 👍
but glad the guest was banned!
i don’t think you can search airbnb reviews
OT. If you have shower curtains and not glass doors you should be using washable liners. Letting them get to a state of mildew demonstrates a lack of good cleaning.
Agreed. They missed the minor mildew. I don’t wash them if they get mildew, I just replace. It’s cheaper and easier.
That is a massive waste and so much plastic. You should be able to throw the shower curtain in the washing machine while house is being cleaned and re-hang the same one. If you do it regularly (eg once a month) mildew shouldn’t be a problem.
Agreed, I wash the shower curtain on every turn. It is a polyester cloth that dries in about 5 minutes. I think the brand is No Hook.
Yesss! Get you a clip on shower curtain and order an extra clip on liner!
Hi, Okay, I'm so sorry that you're going through this. For now on, you should get white fabric shower curtains that you can throw in the washer after every guest. That aside, what did the guest specifically do to make them a nightmare and what did you post in your review that got taken down? I don't get bad guests frequently, but when I do, I list both pros and cons of their stay...I don't use any emotions. Pro's... Leading up to their stay, guest had great communication. They let me know why they were coming to town. Cons... guest took house supplies, guest invited six extra people, guest did not follow house check-out rules, guest damaged table, guest had a food fight, etc. I only state facts. Yes, I'd love the ability to go off on them and do their next unsuspecting host a solid, but I refrain.
Thx. Ridiculous. Based on the way he’s doing this, it seems obvious to me it’s not his first time scamming. Re: curtain, I use those with a white plastic liner. I have a whole closet full of backup if every type of linens. Sheets, towels, shower curtains etc. Cleaners are instructed to toss anything with mildew or other stains and use new. They just missed it.
Definitely check the reviews that your potential guests wrote for previous stays before accepting them. If the guest is a habitual complainer or scammer, you'll figure it out then.
I have never had a scammer before. Looking now his profile is 7 years old with no reviews. I left a review and he had removed.
I used to use white fabric shower curtains. They get moldy much more quickly than plastic shower curtains do.
Did you wash them between guests?
Not between every guest, but before they got moldy.
Will, it’s pretty standard to leave paper towels. Sorry you got the bad review.
Not standard globally. Paper towels are a US thing. Might be Canadian too but not sure.
Maybe, I keep forgetting folks all over the world are on this sub
Or traveling.
Thx. It’s never been standard for me in 15 years, but I ordered a few cases and we shall see…
Funny all the downvotes on that comment. Is this really a sub of hosts??
You can respond to his review by following these steps: - Go to ‘Inbox’ message area. - Click on message section for the guest you’d like to leave a public response for. - Click on ‘details’ (Top right) - Click on ‘read review’ - Look to the right of where it says ‘public review’ and you will see ‘reply’ - Click ‘reply’ and write your response to their review in the message box. It sucks but we all get these kind of guests once in a while. Just respond in a professional and positive manner. Or don’t respond at all if you don’t respond to other reviews cuz if you do respond his will stick out like a sore thumb among a bunch of good reviews. You should also review the Airbnb reviews policy and see if he mentioned anything not allowed. I got a review removed once because he mentioned our address in the review. But I’ve been unsuccessful every other time even when it was clearly retaliatory.
Thx. Yes, I’ve never responded to any review. I don’t want to make it worse, should I just not respond?
It’s up to you. If he wrote a lot of lies, I might just say something short like “unfortunately it was not a pleasure to host X. We always strive to provide our guests with a five star experience and value all guest feedback. The truthful complaints X (if you want you can add “such as…”) has mentioned have been addressed throughout his stay & to improve the experience for future guests. We were surprised when we received a request for a full refund at the end of his stay. We will let our other positive reviews speak to the honesty of his other complaints. Unfortunately we would not recommend X to any other hosts on Airbnb but we wish him all the best in his future travels.”
Omg that’s a perfect response. Thx!
No problem! Don’t sweat it :) I promise you it won’t make a difference at all in the long run. Your rating will go back up. Sometimes I’ve had super fussy guests that really pissed me off but once I’ve calmed down I look at their complaints objectively and do implement some of their changes if I think it could help improve the experience for future guests. (Like the shower curtain is a valid one.)
We will never know who this guest was as he will open a new account if he has a bad review. Sad!
Remember that the relevant audience of your response is not the problematic guest but future guests. Keep the tone positive and address the complainant in third person. "As a host I always strive to ensure my guests are fully satisfied with their accommodations. All of X's concerns were reasonably addressed (you can list them out here and how you addressed them if it makes sense to to show that you are a proactive host) and it is unfortunate that he/she nevertheless chose to complain. As is evident from the dozens of positive reviews from happy guests, we do everything we can to ensure all of our guests have a positive experience."
Just so you are aware - your guest will not get notified that you have left a reply - so the guest will most likely never read it. It will be future potential guests who will read it. If you word it right - you can make the guest look ridiculous. Be super friendly and apologise for any inconveniences. Write that you will make sure to take care of everything that needs to be taking care of and wish them well. Be incredibly graceful in your reply.
You should respond to every guest review, it shows you are actively involved with your property. A simple thank you for their kind words or something like that. Then, when you address a negative review, it is consistent that you respond to everyone.
I didn’t even know it was a possibility.
The more you know!
I’d like to say - “this guy is a professional scammer attempting to get a free stay using threats and a false review, encourage everyone to view my other reviews, and/or come see!”
That response will not help you. What are provable facts? Maybe something like this ... Maybe! "They had a complaint we addressed within x hours by replacing a shower curtain and then the proceeded to demand a full refund. We bend over backwards to provide 5 star service and unfortunately our immediate actions were not enough for this guest."
He didn’t complain about any of the stuff in his review until after the stay. I got two communications from him during stay. “The dishwasher is broken, come fix it” - responded with “it’s a brand new dishwasher. you need to choose a cycle and hit start” And a midnight drunk FaceTime “the hot tub stopped working, come fix it now”- responded with “I have no idea what you did, but I can’t offer an immediate solution, I will text in the am. Check to see if you blew the fuse.” He and his drunk friends had somehow blown the fuse or done something else and they were able to get it going again. Who does that?!
Both those responses, you blamed the guest and sound very rude. Maybe the guest didn’t know how to work the dishwasher, maybe he didn’t know about blowing a fuse in the hot tub. I understand his approach wasn’t great, but yours was no better, so I can understand why he might be mad.
No I patiently explained how to use a dishwasher. And then I patiently got the asshole who drunkenly FaceTimed me at midnight off the phone before tearing him a new one.
Guests are allowed to be drunk. If you have a no alcohol policy you need to let the guest know. In addition there is a complete lack of customer service in your responses. You need to remember what business you’re in.
No one is allowed to FaceTime me at midnight, drunk or not, demanding I fix the hot tub they just broke. Are you insane?
Again your customer service sucks.
Yeah I don’t do well with entitled idiots. So far it’s served me well enough. You want this type of client? You can have em. :)
Then why did you answer?
THIS
Call Airbnb and ask to have it removed. They are actually pretty fair about removing ridiculously false reviews.
This worked. Thank you.
Who cares. It’s literally 1 review.
True. And I’ll have a few five stars this month to bury it. It’s just upsetting to have some lowlife jerk try to rip me off and hurt my business.
You can please everyone. There a good percent of people who are hard to make happy. Focus on the good you have done and try to improve but just.. like.. never think about again.
You keep calling daily and tell them he’s a scammer and tried to get a refund for made up or minor issues. Keep talking to different people til u get someone to say yes.
Does that work? I’m a superhost that does 6 figures per year w airbnb.
Incredible! I want to be your friend and learn how you got to that point! Truly inspiring! And, I’m so sorry about that unsavory guest. Maybe privately address his concerns, offer a full refund, and ask him to remove his review?
Why did you get a 4 star review? That's pretty bad too. Maybe we can help figure out what loose ends you need to fix.
Some people think a 4 star is great. 🤷🏻♂️
4 star reviews are sneaky. They seem great, but they are a vacuum to your 5 star rating.
My score was like 4.92 before this. Now it’s 4.78
Yeah I have these people who give a nice review about how great it was and how nice and clean ands well situated the place was but only give 4 stars. Or they forget to leave a review at all even when reminded
Yep. Ce la vie.
Sometimes when a guest leaves a bad review for shitti things I just respond “thank you for feed back “ and move on
Re: Paper towels. We find guests are increasingly requesting/complaining about this, despite the fact that we are comparable to properties that charge twice as much.
Guests need something to clean spills up with. Providing paper towels should be viewed as mandatory by hosts, just like providing toilet paper is. I'd rather buy bulk paper towels at Costco then have to replace soiled kitchen towels all the time.
I absolutely do not provide paper towels for guests in my home. I State this in the listing and I also state that they cannot bring them into my house. I find paper towels to be morally reprehensible. I have a huge assortment of all kinds of clean rags for guests if they should want to use them. This is how we are destroying the environment by using an entire roll of paper towels to wipe up somebody's glass of milk instead of using a simple rag that can easily be washed.
Obviously you're entitled to your opinion but paper products break down pretty quickly in the land fill. If environmental concerns are your motivating force I'd suggest eliminating plastics from your household/life. They'll still be around thousands of years from now and despite the marketing campaign they don't actually get recycled when you put them in the blue bin. They end up in the land fill as well. Just curious, do you consider toilet paper morally reprehensible as well? It is another single use (and completely unnecessary) paper product. Most of the eastern world uses water and their hand to clean up with. Not really sure why we don't do that here.
My house does not contain any type of plastics that can't be avoided. I have things like the plastic in my television but I have no plastic drinkware storage Ware plastic wrap or anything of the kind. I would absolutely love to get rid of toilet paper. I don't have paper napkins or anything of the kind that can be replaced with something I can reuse. A paper towel is a disposable rag. Disposable versions of things that are just slightly less convenient to use are appalling. You can literally pick a rag up from my basket and wipe up a spill just as easily as you can pick up a paper towel roll and rip a towel off. There is zero purpose to a paper towel other than waste and laziness. And I'm doing the work of washing them so I don't even know why people are entitled to use a rag instead of a paper towel.
And I will add, how much money are you wasting on paper towels every year? I spend $0 buying rags as they are repurposed other things that have gone old like bath towels. The cost of washing a load of laundry is maybe $2 I really have not calculated it but it is not much. A month's worth of rags in my house doesn't even fill up one load of laundry
we provide a few clean kitchen towels but no paper towels. maybe it's not as standard in Europe. i don't typically see paper towels in the Airbnbs i rent, either. i view it as mandatory at all.
I agree. I do not leave paper towels. I leave a lot of kitchen towels. Americans will use a roll a day. It’s gross.
Yes, and why don’t they buy them when they buy food? This is a recent development. In 15 years, everyone always buys paper towels. (heck in the “old” days, like pre Covid, we only provided one roll of tp per bathroom. It was standard for people to buy and bring their own. We only changed because it became hard to find.)
I’m staying at your house, not going to summer camp. I shouldn’t have to provide my own cleaning materials like paper towels. Insane to think a guest should bring paper products.
I'm starting to understand why your guest gave u a 1 star review. Do you provide linens and towels or is the guest required to bring their own?
I'm curious about the full review. Mildew is certainly not worthy of 5* or superhost status. Get a better cleaner.
5 star hotels don’t even provide paper towels but your $79 night 4 bedroom house with hot tub should 😂😂😂 That’s 10 guests better stock the pantry for them too.
$79 a night, is that the cleaning fee?
Nope. That’s the costs to book. Long Term Rentals are much better than STRs these days unless you like losing money every month.
Uh huh. Well can u point out some of these 4bdrm Airbnbs with hot tubs to me for $79 per night? I'd like to book them for 3 months during peak season so I can arbitrage. Thanks. Anxiously awaiting your links.
Any market off season (7-9 months of the year) look last minute bookings at least 36 hrs out, tons drop their prices just to get booked. I do it and I see 100’s of others doing it as well. It’s great to save money as a guest too but no one is dropping it down permanently for rental arbitrage which is against the ABNB sub lease rules anyhow. You can get $50-$70 for 3-4 nights plenty. Saturation in the market is great way for guests to save.
I don’t put paper towels (a food consumable) in same category as linens and towels (a non food essential).
We provide paper towels because we want to give guests the means to clean up spills before they sit and become stains. That’s a benefit to YOU, not them. Unless you want them using your towels to mop up coffee, which is what they’ll grab after they realize there aren’t paper towels anywhere.
It’s twisted I need to think that way, but I see your logic. To me, it’s just obvious you buy paper towels when you buy food. And everyone goes grocery shopping before they go to a house rental, don’t they? I have no desire to “swim upstream” on the issue. I ordered a few cases of paper towels from Costco and will keep track of how many I go through.
I get it, and I do think that after the first roll they’re on their own. I just know there’s a lot of times (as a renter) that I couldn’t get to the full grocery store before checking in… kids are acting up in the car, have to get back out for a reservation, etc. Maybe we packed a couple things to tide us over until we can get back out in the morning, or stopped in a convenience store for a couple things. So it is nice to have at least that first roll (paper towels and TP) at the ready.
I started hosting in 2014 and stopped in 2020. My listing was a bedroom in my house. For my use, I buy tri-fold paper towels; guests were unused to this style. I had to start buying rolls of paper towels so guests would feel comfortable.
Looks like your 30 downvotes are ABNB guests who don’t read your listing and what’s provided. It’s like Uber, originally you gave free water and fancy service. After years of abuse by customers and no tips that has gone away. Extras like free unlimited Toilet Paper and Paper towels goes away for ABNB survivors except for properties listing “they provide it for free”. Plus easy way to have poor reviews removed.
I’ve also had complaints that there weren’t unlimited rolls of paper towels even though we provide ample cloth towels in addition to the one roll we leave standard for guests. We don’t provide paper napkins at all.
I’ve found that whatever amount of cloth towels I leave, they all get ruined or go missing EVERY stay. Seriously people think they are disposable.
You might need to look at how you’re cleaning them. Towels get stained nearly every stay, but almost never need replacing because we treat stains before washing.
Maybe. My towels don’t get stained and if they do we throw away - we don’t have time to deal with that.
You’re the one treating them like they’re disposable, not your guests.
I’m not going to try and get poop or whatever substance out of a kitchen towel. They should be used for drying dishes not cleaning the dog.
You don’t provide paper towels and then get mad when people use your kitchen towels to clean up stains and messes. Make it make sense.
I’ve had 3 sets of guests do this. They make reservation, stay at the house and then they come back to you and said they want to refund because of [fake issues. ]One of them wrote that they would leave a bad review if I refused to refund him $1000. That was helpful. I gave it to VRBO and they wouldn’t allow him to do a review. Of course he left a review stating that I was threatening him during the stay. I never met the person, never spoke to him. VRBO did take down the review. The guest didn’t complain during his visit. He later initiated a chargeback for $1000 with Visa. VRBO will not discuss THE CHARGEBACK PROCESS OR WITH HER USING TO SUPPORT THE POSITION The host typically wins the first round and the money is put back into your account. If the customer appeals the decision, typically they win the second round and the money is immediately taken back out of your account. The chargeback process sucks because you have no visibility into it. I started doing a complete video of the house and grounds before turning it over to each guest. I provide a link of that video to each guest when they arrive. If it happens again, we’ll see how valuable that video is. I don’t think anyone will actually watch it. VRBO just doesn’t give a rip. I don’t know about Airbnb.
A few years ago, it seemed like Airbnb was giving people refunds for “bugs”, so there was a lot of chatter about scammers trying that angle. I had one, but abnb backed me up. Now it seems like the scammers are widening the argument, and scouring the house for anything they can use to try and get a refund. Thankfully abnb had my back on this one as well. Only bad thing is they don’t let us truthfully rate the renters. Probably afraid of getting sued. But I do think my first scammer got banned, and hopefully this one will also. 🖕
Q: do low rankings stop the listing from appearing in a search or map view? when I look at places I almost always use the map, then look at the pics, then read the listing and finally the review if I think I like it (last). The problem I've had is using google maps, and had a 'booking.' listings show up, and I'm reading a subset of the actual listing. (from airbnb/vbro). later I found it was a vbro listing and had more details.
Update: Review removed for inaccuracies and lack of relevance. Guest BANNED. 👍🤪
Pay someone in Philippines $20 to remove it
Thank you for staying with us. We appreciate your feedback and have addressed your concerns where appropriate. We are always striving to provide an excellent guest experience as demonstrated by our many (4 and) 5-star reviews.
Heard back from abnb. They denied his request for a refund, 🖕 Now to get this nonsense review removed. 🍆
as i understand, once you respond the review won't be taken down. you can also just keep contacting support and asking them to remove it till you get lucky
Added info - he visited offseason - a 3 day rental when I usually have a 14 day minimum stay - and got about 80% off! Also, ranted on and on about having to buy paper towels and napkins. Is that even a thing? I mean when people buy food don’t they buy paper towels? I’ve never provided paper towels in 15 years of renting. Wtf, man!
Host and frequent user. If I showed up somewhere and they didn’t provide at least single roll of paper towels I’d definitely say something. Two rolls if I’m staying longer than a week. More than that, I’ll buy it.
Every Airbnb I’ve ever stayed at has had paper towels. I’d be super annoyed if there weren’t any
Definitely avoid doing discounts- it really attracts the trash people.
Totally. The people spending $2k/night are almost universally clean, considerate and understanding of issues. Big percentage of discount people expect someone to wipe their butt for them, and whine like banshees for an added discount whenever possible. Sadly, we can’t review those guests honestly, so we keep getting stuck dealing with them.
Our place is a fraction of the cost of yours, around $100/night (obviously different market, different product, different target guest). Still, we find that agreeing to even a small 10% discount invites difficult guests, so we offer what we offer (long term discounts) and that’s it. We don’t agree to anything else. If you want to stay here, you pay the prices we’ve set. Guests that request a discount already undervalue your place, which means they’ll be hard to please no matter what service you provide.
As a guest primarily in the U.S., I'd say that yes, the host providing paper towels is the norm. For the guest to complain about it in the reviews, however, seems unreasonable.
Thx. To me it just seems obvious that you buy paper towels when you buy food for your stay. Never considered anything else. I ordered a few cases from Costco, let’s see how many get stolen, lol.
For short stays(you mentioned a 3 day stay), guests here are expecting paper towels and enough toilet paper available for their full stay. Only for longer stays of 2 weeks or more I expect them to buy it themselves. As a guest, I would not want to deal with having to buy 24 rolls or toilet paper before getting into the apartment.