Upset by a negative Airbnb review. Should I do anything?

[Daddyjammy]

AIBU to be upset by the bad review we've just been given as guests? Worried it will impact on being able to rent other places.

Our family's always had great reviews from our hosts in the past and we try to be as considerate as possible, so this has quite upset me.

We had a lovely stay (won't mention where but in the UK) and left a glowing review of the place, which, to be fair was pretty immaculate when we arrived.

Checkout was supposed to be 10.00 which is at least an hour earlier than we've ever had before and we did try to get up and out in time but with two teenage kids we had managed to get all of our stuff out of the house and by the car by 10.40 and I was just doing final checks, cleaning kitchen and hoovering when the cleaner arrived. She was very curt with me as I was still on the drive but she was able to park on the road just 5 yards away then virtually threw me out of the house before i could even grab the (tied up) rubbish bags to put in the bin and recycling. We had hoovered the night before, cleared away all of our breakfast and generally tidied but apparently didn't put everything back in its right place, "moved artwork" (absolutely no idea what this could be) and left so much dog hair on the sofa it took an extra hour to clean (the dog, which we had checked was ok in advance, was banned from the sofa when we were there but may have got up there when we were out but we certainly didn't notice much hair).

Turns out the cleaner was the owner's mum so I'm guessing I caused offence by mentioning that she was "brusque" with us and maybe they're upset that we broke a dessert bowl, although I left a tenner to cover for this and offered more if I hadn't left enough, or that we accidentally used their Netflix account rather than our own (is that really bad form?).

Genuinely not sure if we sound like really bad guests and need to up our game or if we've come across a particularly picky host who expects too much from guests paying over £1,000 for a week with one bedroom and a sofa bed in a (quite nice) little house.

Not sure why everyone thinks this is a reverse. The dog and netflix comments are completely ridiculous. Ok the teen thing is lame.

I think a lot of MNers are second home owners and do AirBnB and like then money, but not having to deal with the PAYING guests. I am absolutely sure that some guests are a pain in the proverbial but that's also why I would never work in the hospitality industry.

You might be mildly annoyed at the car still being there when you turned up to clean, but making a song and dance about it on a review? Oh come on. That's what you do when someone leaves the bath running and causes the ceiling to collapse (actually happened to someone my mum knows who runs a pub with rooms).

Why on earth did you mention the cleaner's 'brusqueness' in your review when you knew you'd left 40 mins late? Everything else could have been styled out - netflix you could have misunderstood, broken bowl you paid for, dog was approved by the owner. But your review was silly. I'd edit your review if you can to remove that, and then hopefully the host's review looks like it's in the wrong place.

@Daisydoesnt

the reason we are sometimes late leaving is that we're trying to leave a place as clean as we found it

Honestly OP that is a waste of time and I speak as a long time term but now ex-Host. Wash and put all your dishes away, and empty the bins, but there is no point in cleaning so it’s “like you found it”…. IF ITS GOING TO MAKE YOU LATE LEAVING. Even if you’ve left it spotless the place will still have to be cleaned top to bottom (especially in COVID days). You being late and therefore the cleaner being late to start is the real problem.

But if it's not spotless you'll get a bad review for that, too.

Awful Guest left a sweet wrapper next to the bed and a unwashed cup in the kitchen. Never ever ever rent to this family!

Unsure how I ended up on this thread 😅 ignore me everyone

Yabu. You don't have to leave it perfectly clean, just do what they ask you to do and leave on time.
How does having teenagers mean you're late getting out of somewhere, surely they get themselves sorted?
We stayed in 4 air bnbs back to back over a 2 week holiday in the summer with a 6 month old and 4 year old, managed to get out of each of them on time, without breaking anything, emptied bins, put dishwasher on and stripped beds.

The lateness is bad but the rest of their complaints are nonsense really.

I'm a bit of a slow coach OP, but 10am is hardly the crack of dawn.
The 2 teenagers could've been put to good use helping to tidy and so on.
If it was my place I'd be cross about the dog hair too!
YABU

I don’t think you sound like particularly bad guests, the only thing that was bad was the leaving late which probably left the cleaner pinched for time.

@Clomid1

Unsure how I ended up on this thread 😅 ignore me everyone

LOl we did !

Bless you.. good luck!

@Farfalle88

It’s not acceptable to be an hour late checking out. The rest of it seems nit picking. I think owners can charge you what they like now and a lot of cleaners are taking the piss, Claiming they have to spend hours cleaning to make extra money. I was really upset when we stayed somewhere where we were told we had To leave everything as we found it. I got up at 6 am to clean before leaving. Toilets, showers, floors etc. It took me hours. The owners said the cleaners had to spend hours cleaning up after us and tried to charge £150 extra. Total piss take. I loved the house and the location so was absolutely gutted we can’t return . I didn’t pay the extra.

This is what I was talking about. You have a lovely week and then all of that de-stressing and feeling great ends when you feel the need to clean like that and for what?

Farfalled88 - my goodness crazy, that was taking advantage of you - the cleaner should have been delighted to see the place so clean. You should not need to clean showers, - the house should be presentable so that the cleaner can go about sorting the fridge, cooker, microwave, bathrooms in an orderly manner. I wouldnt return either no matter how much i would love to

You were unreasonable to leave comments on your review about their cleaner, whoever she was. She probably had a tight turnaround to clean the place for incoming guests, not helped by you being there - and the only reason you met her at all is because you were late leaving!

It's really poor form to use someone else's Netflix etc account without their permission.

I'd forgive you the dog hair and the broken bowl though, the odd broken bit of crockery is par for the course and you left money for it.

Surely you must know if you need to be out by 10am then you factor your cleaning time into that?? Checkout doesn’t mean pretty much almost gone but I still need to Hoover and take the rubbish out so I’ll go over by nearly an hour. It means you are gone and have left the property as you found it by 10am?

How would you feel if they didn’t let you check in for nearly an hour past check in time?

But it kind of sounds like this wasn’t a one off, you make a habit of checking out late and you think you’re entitled too because you have teenagers and can’t time manage?

Soooo in answer so your question, yeah YABU. And a bit of a CF for calling the cleaner ‘brusque’ when you were in the wrong, plus using their Netflix.

@MerryHellbreakingloose

Reverse?

Because you sound like awful guests.

this

Using a logged in Netflix account is pretty minor though

I'm not familiar with Netflix at all , I wouldn't know if the owner was logged in or not.

Last holiday cottage we were in had some sort of subscription TV service - there was no information about it in the cottage "folder" and ds just found it by chance when channel hopping. Maybe we wandered into someone's account by accident but we just assumed it was there for guest use.

Not being out on time isn't very good. We had to be out of our last place for 9am with three teens.
40 mins isn't just a bit late.

We have a holiday let- 1 broken bowl? Meh. Using the Netflix account- rude but not the end of the world, I check that sort of thing at change over.
Moving stuff? Annoying as it takes time to sort out, but unless you did a complete re-vamp not too bad.
Dog hairs on the sofa- Why didn't you use a throw/keep the dog off? Getting cross now!
40 minutes late and blocked parking so I had to lug stuff from the car- I would be very cross indeed!

10am check out is pretty normal with covid, there is a whole new level of sanitizing on top of the cleaning, I know precisely how long my change over takes- holding up the cleaner for a whole 40 minutes (probably more as she had to wait for you to go, and unload her stuff from the car- is just not on. I would leave a bad review for that too.

As for whether you should do anything, no. You've each left a review and anyone reading them will ead between the lines and come to their own conclusions, pretty much like on here where some think you're wrong and some think the owner is. For what it's worth, if I saw owner feedback moanning about moved artwork and broken bowls I would choose not to stay there. It's very unprofessional of them to complain about trivia like that.

But the OP didn't delay the cleaner they were just leaving as she arrived.
So yes they left late but didn't hold anyone up.

If the cleaner had sat outside waiting for 40 mins while she faffed about I'd think they had a point but the cleaner was 40 mins late too, so no harm done.

I also don't get all this scrubbing everything clean before you leave thing. We pay to have it clean when we arrive and cleaned for the next people.

I leave it tidy and would clean up any real mess but the rest is left for the cleaner.
And I've never had a bad review.

@lockdownmadnessdotcom

The 40 minutes is neither here nor there - covid or no covid - it's not going to have a major impact on the time they have to clean and having to wait a couple of minutes while you move the car off the drive is hardly an imposition. They seem to have forgotten who the service provider is - doesn't surprise me - they just see it as money making and don't want the actual graft. That said, using teenagers as a reason to be late is a bit lame. I don't like people being late (see the thread about it) and am generally on time checking out of places but I wouldn't expect to be abused for being late especially with self-catering when the list of jobs guests are expected to do seems to be extremely long!

Not a dog lover but complaining about dog hair when you allow dogs is ridiculous. If they don't want dog hair, don't allow dogs.

I can't' comment on Netflix, but if it's advertised as a service they offer, they can't really moan that you used it. I don't have a Netflix subscription so if I switched on the TV and it was logged in I would expect to be able to use it unless they'd specifically said don't.

All in all it seems like staying in a hotel is much easier! As said above, the "rules" imposed on self-catering guests seem pretty over the top given you are paying for the privilege of staying somewhere (and about three times as much as normal this year).

They don't' want you again OP but you don't want them again either. It doesn't matter.

You see that starts of with a complete lack of understanding of the ongoing additional issues LLs and cleaners have in holidat lets.

Check Out day is the busiest day of the week for any cleaner and they have to do a lot more re. covid. An hour out of their shedule could mean that someone waiting somewhere to check in at 5pm would find the cleaner still there, desperately trying to make up that time without skimping, getting the LL a bad review from an angry geuest at the beginning of their holiday.

But a dog that is allowed,w would have probably beein fine - had you not been 40 minutes late because you were still 'cleaning'! That was 40 minutes the cleaner could have got into her routine and got rid of the dog hair you missed!

Netlfix that is left available, artwork someone moved and didn't put back and a broken bowl... all just added annoyances!

It's good to leave a place clean but you need to get up early enough to make that possible whilst still leaving at the check-out time. It's not OK to leave 40 minutes late and it's not OK to treat it like that's no big deal when it clearly was for the cleaner.

holding up the cleaner for a whole 40 minutes (probably more as she had to wait for you to go, and unload her stuff from the car- is just not on.

Being pedantic, they didn't hold her up for 40 minutes. The cleaner didn't arrive until 10.40 so was only delayed by the amount of time from 10.40 until the OP got out which sounds pretty quick after cleaner arrived.

Although I do agree they should have been out on time.

You mention you left the dog in the air bnb when you were out. Even the most dog friendly places I've stayed say they can't remain there unsupervised.

@Glssr195726113493

Ha! You left nearly an hour late, the cleaner couldn’t park nearby and had to lug stuff, you broke something, you used their Netflix, you left dog hair all over the sofa… 😂 oh OP.

When it's paraphrased like this I can see how the host could have been a bit pissed off

However "bad review " is subjective so without seeing that it's hard to say if she's been unfair or just saying it as she sees it.

And yes, no excuse other than something life or death for being out if the property late.