My First Airbnb 1-Star Review

I received my first 1-star review on Airbnb this week.

Before that I was 23/23 with 5-star reviews.

A few things went wrong early in this guest’s stay so I offered him a significant discount (18%).

He said my offer was unprofessional and unacceptable and that he needed a full refund of $2,737.34. At that point, he said he was done speaking with me and that he would contact Airbnb directly.

I have had small problems as a host before this but a partial refund has always satisfied the guest.

The group of guests left after one night on a six-night stay.

After some back and forth with Airbnb they told me that my guest would be refunded for 6/7 nights, receive a 20% discount on the one night his group stayed at the house, be refunded for the cleaning fee and would still be able to leave a review.

He left me a 1-star overall review with 1-star in every category.

His review was:

“Nothing cleaned. Nothing advertised was functional. Not hot water and there was a dead cockroach in the kitchen”

His specific complaints and my responses (putting the complaints with the most validity on top):

· The hot water in the house went out- I agree this is a big concern on vacation but we got a plumber to the house in 15 minutes and the hot water was back on within 30 minutes.

· Found a dead cockroach under the kitchen sink- Again, I would be upset about this on vacation as well but he claimed this meant the entire house was not cleaned before his stay. We have seen dead cockroaches on the patio area but this is the first time seeing one in the house. From 2014-2020 I lived in 6 different locations in Tampa and saw at least one cockroach in each. It’s difficult to keep them 100% out in FL. I’m looking into monthly pest mitigation services.

· The pool had leaves in it- I agreed that the pool was dirtier than I would have wanted as a guest. My pool cleaner is on a weekly schedule and he was due at 2pm on their first full day. I’m looking into STR specific pool cleaning services that have access to the listing’s calendar and clean the pool between each stay. It will be more expensive but people are going there for the pool.

· Mini fridge outside not working- It was left open at some point and had an ice buildup. This was blocking the fan and making it not as cold as it should have been. It was still running and cold enough to keep a drink cold. I will add checking it for ice to the cleaning checklist.

· Front gate broken- The bottom hinge on the front gate was broken but it still closed and locked. I thought this was fixed before the stay. I’m working on continuing to build a list of skilled workers in the Tampa area that can fix problems on a short notice.

· No batteries in any remotes- Only 2/6 remotes had working batteries (2/5 because he claimed one was missing). I agree this is unacceptable and it’s being added to the cleaning checklist. I did explain to him that the TVs are all the same and the working remotes will work on any TV.

· Fence was missing a post- Not sure how or when this happened. Still figuring out what the best solution is. Not sure if I should replace the post, a section of the fence or the entire fence. I don’t think any of the fence looks great but I’m also not sure what the ROI on a new one would be.

· Remote for outdoor tv missing- The remote was on the table in front of the TV. Either this was a lie or they found it after saying it wasn’t there.

· No pots or pans in the kitchen- Kitchen is fully stocked. No idea where this came from.

· Pool was not heated- The listing does not advertise that the pool is heated. I have had guests ask about pool heating before booking their stay and if their average daily rate is high enough, I will say yes to heating it for their stay. I would like to upgrade the pump system in the future so I can control the temperature remotely and advertise a daily rate for pool heating on this listing.

The hot water going out was the last problem. I had already mentioned the partial refund but that was when he contacted Airbnb about leaving and demanding a full refund.

I was upset for a few hours and thinking that the situation was unfair. I was worried that my house wouldn’t get any stays with a 1-star review.

After deciding to take 100% accountability for everything that went wrong and starting to work on systems to improve, I got excited about the STR industry again. The listing got two bookings yesterday.

I’m going to start using a cleaning checklist on each turnover and listing the property on other STR platforms. These are things that I knew I should have been doing but I stopped feeling the need to because of how well things were going on Airbnb. Overall, a good lesson on giving things 100% even if they’re going well.

Do I think any of those problems were bad enough to completely ruin someone’s vacation and make a house unlivable like this guest said? No, but it’s fair to assume that 2-3% of guests will think that.

If anyone has any short-term rental tips or suggestions after reading this story, I’d love to hear them. If anyone has any questions or wants advice on short-term rentals or multifamily investing, I’m happy to help.

Looking forward to continuous improvement in this independent hospitality industry.