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How to Deal With Bad Airbnb Guests - FULL GUIDE - Airbnb Guest Problems

How to Deal With Bad Airbnb Guests (Our Proven Strategies)

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How to Deal With Bad Airbnb Guests

When you deal with enough customers, you’re going to have the occasional problem from time to time. Though we call them “guests” in the Airbnb world, they are still just another type of customer. In this Article, we’ll discuss how to manage problem guests, parties, potential issues. PLUS –  how to solve issues proactively instead of reactively. 

Depending on the size of each Airbnb you manage, you may need to take a variety of different security measures. Of course, some require more security than others. For example, a 6-bedroom mansion will need much more than a two-bedroom apartment.

Larger homes are especially at risk for parties or larger groups causing issues for your clients and the neighbourhood. However, there are lots of other ways guests can be a problem, and – as the manager – it’s your job to deal with it.

The last thing you want when you list a new home is to have a target on your back due to guests misbehaving at your property.

No matter how many properties you run, it’s critical to your business, the relationship with your client, and their neighbourhood that you get this right at the start, so it doesn’t escalate into a dispute and your listing being shut down

What’s worse is that these guests can also try and damage your reputation if not dealt with properly. Be sure to also read our comprehensive guide  “How to Remove Bad Airbnb Reviews as a Host”

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The Three People We Need to Keep Happy  – The homeowner, the guest, and the neighbours.

We managed over 60 properties of all types. So we have a good idea about the type of security features that need to be implemented for each property. 

In my experience, the problem we face as BNB property managers is that we’re constantly trying to keep at least three different sets of people happy at any one property at any given time. 

These are the homeowner, the guest, and the neighbours.

What the homeowner/client wants:

The homeowner wants the maximum revenue of course. But also only wants the best guests, who won’t cause issues and pay the most money. The problem is that this isn’t always possible.

After all, not every single guest happens to be a nice, quiet family there to visit relatives. This just isn’t a realistic expectation in the real world.

What the Guests want:

Often, you’ll have groups of friends, young people, birthdays, and – on occasion – people trying to host bachelor and bachelorette parties at your home. The guests are paying for the experience they want, and can complain to Airbnb if the property doesn’t meet their expectations. 

However, we also want to keep a low profile for the Airbnb property and not cause issues with the neighbours. Unfortunately, when you host a few of these noisier groups, you’ll be the target of unnecessary drama very quickly. If this happens, you’ll be playing defence trying to get everyone back on your side, while also trying to deal with the problem guests.

This is especially true if you have homes in high-end areas. People living in these places don’t want to be disturbed by the Airbnb on the street – and if they are, they will do everything in their power to get it shut down. If this happens, it could cost your business 20-40k revenue per year or more depending on how good the home is.  

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Bad Guest Prevention Strategies – Must have security measures for your Airbnb property.

Property Security Strategy #1 –  Install a WIFI Doorbell Camera 

With a wifi doorbell camera, you can monitor the number of people who enter the home via an app on your phone. Some of your guests may get annoyed at the camera lighting up every time they walk past. However, this is actually a good thing. You WANT them to know that you have your security in place. 

None of this is to spy on the guests, of course. You just want to confirm the correct number of people entering the property.

Often you can easily determine if a group is likely to be fine or may need further attention based on these 2 examples:

Guest Example #1 – A 6 person stay is booked. When you see a couple, two grandparents and two kids bringing in luggage, you can probably mentally check that property off your watch list for the duration of their stay.

Guest Example #2 – However for a different booking. Maybe you see ten 25-year-old guys checking in, all carrying boxes of beer for a holiday weekend at a waterfront mansion… In this case, you may want to monitor this a bit more closely to make sure it doesn’t get out of control!

Speaking of monitoring…

 

Property Security Strategy #2 – Install A Noise Monitor

In larger homes and quiet areas, you will most likely need to install a sound decibel monitor. Noise Monitor’s are not that cheap and often cost a monthly fee. But they are 100% worth it. 

These noise monitors work by measuring the decibel level of specific parts of the home or yard. They’re simple to set up. We often suggest putting them outside the back door on a patio, assuming that’s where the neighbours are most likely to hear the noise. 

Next, set a maximum decibel level you will allow past a certain time of day. If the noise level goes higher than that noise level for longer than 10 minutes, an alarm notification will go off on your phone. 

 

How to monitor your noise monitor

Once you get the first notification, you don’t have to react straight away. Often I’d wait for the 20 or 30 minute alarm before acting. At this point you should check your doorbell camera to see if more guests have arrived. You’ll also likely be able to hear the noise through the doorbell camera. 

Next, you can simply send your guest a message, let them know there has been a noise complaint, and ask them to please reduce the noise. Just do this on Airbnb so there’s a record of it for later. Always try to be polite on the first message just in case it’s a mistake.

Again, your guests may complain about this, but your homes are not party houses. If that’s what the guest wanted, then they should have booked somewhere else. Your listing should clearly state that you do not allow parties or events.

In the case of bigger homes, the cost of these sound monitoring devices is small compared to the high revenue large properties generate. Plus, all of these costs generally get billed to the property owner anyway.

Most owners of these expensive properties are happy to pay the costs for the added peace of mind.

Property Security Strategy #3 – Engage an On-Call 24 hours Security Service 

For those “last resort” situations, we had an independent contractor security team who operated ‘after hours’ overnight from 6pm-5am in our area. We paid them a small yearly subscription fee and then prepaid for the callouts. If there were any issues late at night, they would visit the property to see what the issue was. Then take action based on your advice. Keep in mind, we only pay the callout fee if they actually attend the property.

Why not just call the police on the guests instead?

Security teams are great for going out and checking on the property. They do so without causing the sorts of issues that come with calling the police. The service we used was happy to attend our properties with the freedom to evict or give warnings to the guests. In most cases, they would settle everything down and then report back to us with a full picture of what had happened so we could decide what to do next. 

Eviction is the last thing you want to do, especially when people are drunk. Your guests will be unruly, trying to pack their things. Then they’ll most likely end up on the street being loud at 2am waiting for taxis. This will often disturb the neighbours more than the party itself. 

Our Method for this situation:

A method we used for sending security to parties would be to have security go there, inspect the situation, meet the guests, and settle everyone down. Then security would have anyone who wasn’t our actual booked guests leave the home and have the booked guests threatened with eviction if there were any further noise complaints or disturbances. 

Depending on how bad the offence was, once we decided that we wanted to evict the guests – this is generally how we handled it: 

We would wait overnight for things to settle down and message the guests through Airbnb the following morning, outlining the rules they broke and giving them one hour to leave the property. This avoids a disturbance to the neighbourhood during the night. 

Plus, you’re now dealing with sober guests in the daytime. At the end of the hour of notice given, myself or one of our property managers would then attend the property to ensure they were leaving and make sure there was no damage to the property. 

These may seem like unlikely situations, but when you host enough stays at enough properties, they can happen from time to time.

The better your systems are to deal with it, the better the outcome will be for you, your client, and the neighbours.  

Preparation and early detection is key! If you can notice these issues at 7pm instead of reacting to a party at 1am, the situation will be much easier to control. 

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What can go wrong if you don’t deal with bad Airbnb guests properly?

Now, let’s look at what can happen if you don’t follow these guidelines. 

The first is obvious: you can end up losing tens of thousands of dollars per year from shut down properties and lost clients.

Your clients want a “hands-free” service.

If clients have neighbours calling them and complaining in the middle of the night, this is BAD. Suddenly, your service is no longer ‘hands-free’.

Before long, they’ll be micromanaging you, or they will simply end your service entirely.

Your property managers need to be diligent. If you have a property manager in your business and they miss a large group of extra guests arriving at the property, who then go on to cause a disturbance, your client relationship can be damaged forever.

In some cases, the house may get shut down by the local council due to neighbour complaints. 

Everyone on your team needs to be vigilant and aligned on the same goals.

You can prevent the majority of these events from happening before the guest gets there. You just need to have your standard procedures in place.

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Do some Airbnb Properties attract Bad Guests more than others?

For whatever reason, some properties are just magnets for difficult guests and issues!

For example – We had an amazing waterfront, 5 bed, 2 story home with a huge deck, nice pool, and outdoor seating. It was so nice in fact, that people were always trying to host events there (which we don’t allow).  

After a party incident, we sent out a mass message to all future guests reminding them that there are to be no events at the home and asking them to confirm that wasn’t their intention.

Sure enough, we had a guest assure us no one else was coming. Then, on their check-in day, we were notified around 9pm that there seemed to be a lot of people at the house.

We contacted the guest, who assured us everything was OK…

However, when our property manager knocked on the door, she discovered there were around 40 guests in our house for a birthday party. 

We followed our normal procedure of contacting Airbnb, giving an eviction notice, etc. Then we went to the property ourselves.

The guest seemed bewildered that he was being evicted, but I didn’t have much sympathy. They asked if they could stay the night and I simply had to say no, so within 8 hours of them checking into a 3 night stay, they were sent on their way. 

Although we were vigilant and were able to rectify these issues quickly, with minimal disruption to the neighbours, the home was still reported to the local council and shut down a few weeks later. This one bag guest group easily cost us 30k+ per year in business revenue and 2-3 times that when the time came to sell the business (because these businesses are normally valued at 2-3 times yearly revenue).

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Here are some Additional Tips on how to deal with Bad Airbnb Guests 

Before we end, I want to go over a few other things to be aware of.

Get a doorbell camera if you can – it’s worth it

For some apartments, you can’t do much in terms of cameras due to privacy or lack of placement areas. However, for a house, you should follow a standard procedure of having the owner pay for a doorbell camera. We used Eufy brand cameras. In my opinion, they were well-priced and easy to set up. Plus, I could have all my homes in one app location on my phone. 

Another tip is to never give the home owners, (your clients), access to the cameras!

I’ll go into detail about why in another article. However, this is never a good idea and always works against you.

For larger homes and waterfront properties, where sound travels across the water:

I strongly recommend getting a noise monitor. We used Minut monitors. They’re expensive, but they work well. They also have crowd detection, which is perfect if you have a property that’s at risk for large groups. 

In terms of security, you may not have security services in your town. This means the job will typically fall on you. Here’s a tip: it’s always best not to escalate a situation if there is a large group there. If it’s later at night, get all the extra people out and quiet everything down. Then, in the morning, send an eviction notice through the platform and attend to the property to ensure everyone is leaving. 

Police are always a last resort in my opinion. Police attendence will draw a lot of attention to your listing (and not the good kind). But don’t be afraid to tell guests that is the next step and call them if you need to.

Be proactive involving Airbnb support – build your case early!

A key takeaway here is to always involve Airbnb in some capacity and do so proactively before the guest does. If you don’t contact Airbnb as soon as possible, they will NOT help you. Remember, the platforms (especially Airbnb) are not there for hosts – they’re there for the guests. That is, UNLESS you force them to be on your side with good hosting procedures, communication, and record-keeping. Read our full breakdown on how to use Airbnb support to deal with problem guests here

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Conclusion 

Hopefully, this has given you some ideas on how to better secure your homes against problem guests. 

We go into a lot more detail about this in our Airbnb Accelerator Program

You can apply to join Airbnb Accelerator here: APPLY JOIN AIRBNB ACCELERATOR 

We’ve also added some links to the relevant security devices mentioned in the article as well – You can view more Airbnb Business Articles Here.

If you have any questions or need clarity on anything we’ve been over today, please reach out to us. We’re happy to help.

Prefer to watch our video on this topic?

Watch our full youtube video here:  How To Protect Your Airbnb From Problem Guests

 

7 Reasons Not to Do Airbnb Arbitrage in 2025 - BNB Fastlane

7 Reasons NOT to do Airbnb Arbitrage

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7 Reasons NOT to do Airbnb Arbitrage

You’ve probably heard about Airbnb Arbitrage businesses (also know as Rent-to-Rent deals)

For many years this business model has been promoted as a ‘get-rich-quick’ easy business scheme online. Normally by people who haven’t ever actually made much money doing it themselves.

What you don’t hear so often are stories from all the people who tried Airbnb Arbitrage and lost a tonne of money – many even went completely bankrupt!

Can you make money doing an Airbnb Arbitrage Business?

Yes, you can make money doing Airbnb Arbitrage (and we show you exactly how to do it in our Airbnb Accelerator Program).

But here’s a couple things most people don’t tell you:

  1. Airbnb Arbitrage is by far the most risky model for an Airbnb Business.
  2. There are much easier, more profitable and far less risky Airbnb Business Options.
    1. EG: Co-hosting or Airbnb Management (Yes, we teach both of these in our Airbnb Accelerator Program too!)
  3. Most people who buy ‘Airbnb Arbitrage Courses’ or try to do it themselves never make a single dollar or get a property to manage.
    1. And of the few that DO get a property, they often lose their money because the numbers don’t work out or they’re not skilled enough at maximising Airbnb Revenue. 
  4. Even if you can have some success with Airbnb Arbitrage it’s often temporary. Markets can change, Laws can change, Your landlord can cancel your lease etc. Most of these risks don’t have much effect on other Airbnb Business models, but in Arbitrage even 1 or 2 bad months can destroy your whole business (and then some).
Watch the Video: "7 Reasons NOT to Do Airbnb Arbitrage"

Here are 7 of the main reasons NOT to do Airbnb Arbitrage:

Reason # 1 – You need to invest a lot of money up front.

In order to get started with Airbnb arbitrage you need to pay for a bond, at least 1-2 months lease and ALL the furnishings for the house or apartment. This normally ranges from a minimum of 15k to 50k+

Reason #2 – It’s VERY RISKY!

Airbnb Arbitrage is fine while your property is fully booked, but if the market changes and your bookings dry up for even 1 or 2 months, you suddenly find yourself losing a lot of money, fast! Plus you’re still locked in to your lease contract and utilities expenses for the home.

Reason #3 – It can be very difficult to get properties.

It’s quite difficult to get good properties to rent out in general at the moment in many places around the world. This means it’s even harder to find a property with a landlord that will allow you to do Airbnb arbitrage in their property. You will likely need to approach dozens or hundreds of landlords before you will find one that will let you use their property.

Reason #4 – You’re locked into a long lease + furniture + utilities.

If you decide that you don’t want to continue doing the business or the property isn’t performing then you will often find you’re stuck because you signed lease and utility contracts, plus you have an entire house full of furniture you’ve invested in to manage.

Reason #5 – You can lose the property when your lease ends.

Leases don’t last forever, so there is always the possibility that your landlord will simply decide not to renew your lease when it ends. This could be for many reasons like they want to switch to long term rental to a single tenant, or maybe they want to sell the property. Maybe they even just steal your idea and turn it into a short-term rental themselves!

Reason #6 – It’s difficult to scale the business.

It generally takes quite a bit of time to find properties and you also need to invest a lot of money up front each time you do in bonds, leases, furniture and utilities. This makes this model difficult to scale to multiple properties and caps your potential earnings and also the speed at which you can scale your business.

Reason #7 – It takes a long time to start making profit.

With Airbnb Arbitrage you invest a tonne of time and money upfront in Bond, Lease, Furnishing and utilities. This means even if the property performs really well it can still take 6 months or more before you actually make any profit. And if it doesn’t perform well you may actually lose money, which is a real risk! This becomes an even bigger issue if you only have a 1-year lease on the property as your lease may end just when you’re starting to get things together and make some profit.

Learn the BEST way to build an Airbnb Business in our Free Training

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❌Without owning, leasing or furnishing any properties!

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How to Remove Airbnb Reviews as a Host - BNB Fastlane

How To Remove Bad Airbnb Reviews as a Host – (FULL GUIDE Step-by-step)

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How to Remove Bad Airbnb Reviews as a Host – (FULL GUIDE Step-by-step)

 

If you have received a bad, unfair or 1-star review from an Airbnb Guest, don’t worry! This comprehensive how-to guide will show you the exact steps you should take to remove bad Airbnb reviews left by guests. You will also learn how to prevent getting them in future!

Most guests are reasonable and if you provide a nice experience they do the right thing and leave a 5-star review.

Unfortunately, when you host enough guests, no matter how good your service is or how well you filter the guests from booking, eventually you will get a problem guest who decides to leave a bad review.

This is a long and in-depth article and you can skip ahead if you desire but we really recommend reading the whole article in sequence so you get the most value from the information.

If you prefer to Download the Full PDF Guide and Get our Free Training – you can do that below.


This guide could potentially save you thousands of dollars in lost guest bookings if you don’t know how to deal with these issues properly.

 

What is considered a ‘BAD REVIEW’ by Airbnb Standards?

ANSWER: Airbnb considers anything less than 5 Stars to be a ‘bad review’. 

Unfortunately, Airbnb makes the entire process very unfair to hosts and very confusing for guests. 

Airbnb sees anything less than ‘5 Stars Overall’ as a ‘Bad Guest Experience’. 

On the other hand, when it comes time for the guests to review their stay, Airbnb makes it seem like it’s totally fine to leave less than 5 stars and even sets up the review process to make it difficult for a guest to give 5 stars in every category.

This means their ratings system is totally skewed AGAINST hosts. Instead of an ‘average’ score being 2.5/5, it’s actually 4.75/5 that Airbnb considers average. 

Anything below a 4.75 rating is not eligible for ‘superhost’ status, for example.

You can view the full ratings system article on Airbnb’s website here

(Below is an excerpt from the Airbnb website (current as of 7/MAY/2024)

 

[BEGIN EXCERPT FROM AIRBNB WEBSITE]

Star rating categories

Guests will rate their stays in the following categories—so bear these in mind when preparing for your next guest:

  • Overall experience: How was it?
  • Cleanliness: Did the place meet our standards?
  • Accuracy: Was it accurately represented with up-to-date photos and info?
  • Check-in: Was it easy?
  • Communication: Did the Host respond to messages promptly?
  • Location: Was the guest made aware of safety, transportation, points of interest and special considerations like noise or other situations that might affect their stay?
  • Value: Was it worth the price?
  • Amenities: Was everything promised in the listing available and in good, working condition?

Note that Overall experience is a specific category where guests add a rating, not an average of the other categories.

 

[END EXCERPT FROM AIRBNB WEBSITE]

 

As you can see from the above article excerpt, the review rating system is pretty misleading for guests. If they were to answer those questions and give a 1-5 star rating for each one it’s easy to see how they give unfair ratings. 

For example; “Accuracy”. This is a pretty ridiculous category. In our opinion if a guest gives a ‘3-star’ this would mean a full 40% of every single thing on the property was incorrect!! But a guest might just rate that because you said the beds were super comfy but they prefer a different hardness of mattress or something silly like that.

What options do you have to remove bad reviews from your Airbnb Listing?

Airbnb is heavily skewed against property owners and managers (hosts). Airbnb will ALWAYS take the side of the guest no matter how many years you have been in business –  unless you’re very good at managing the process 😉 

Our tips below should help you remove a good % of negative reviews or in the very least, help you prevent them in future.

A few methods for removing bad Airbnb Guest Reviews we will discuss are:

  1. Prevention is far better than a cure
  2. Warning signs that a guest might be a problem
  3. Addressing the issue during a stay or before a guest submits a review
  4. After a bad review appears, how to get it removed
    1. Methods for getting the guest to remove the review themselves
    2. Negotiating with Airbnb to remove the review
    3. Fighting Airbnb to remove the review in the very common case that they are unhelpful the first time you try
    4. Removing 1 Star Airbnb guest reviews
    5. Removing 2 Star and 3 star guest reviews 
    6. Removing 4 Star guest reviews

 

1. Prevention is better than a cure – prevent bad reviews before they happen!

As with most issues in life, if you can prevent a problem before it occurs then it’s much better for all people involved. 

Some different ways to PREVENT a guest leaving a bad review include:

  • Make sure your property is great!

This might seem like a ‘no-brainer’, but it’s important to mention. Is your space well set up and a great experience for guests? Do you have a good track record of 5-star reviews? Is it well maintained and does everything work perfectly as described at the property? Is the property super easy for a guest to access no matter what time they check in? (EG: clear instructions of a lockbox on site).

If you let things slide and amenities don’t work then this is always an easy way to start having issues with guests and their experience.

BONUS TIP: The first impression a guest has when they walk in the door can make or break the entire experience. Make sure they walk into a clean home, free of clutter and you can also do small touches like having a welcome light turned on, some windows open to bring in a nice sea breeze etc. 

For example, if a home has an entrance that leads to a water view you can close all the doors that lead the guest off the walkway that leads to the water views, turn on all the lights/feature lights along the path and open all the blinds prior to their arrival. 

This way the guests will walk into a well lit home and their first impression has been pre-designed for them to be a great one! Now the person who booked, what may have been a quite expensive trip, looks like they have nailed the accommodation for their group (and is more likely to leave a good review!) 

If a guest walks in the door and immediately starts seeing one or two issues, then they are much more likely to actively look for more issues around the property and potentially become a problem guest.

  • Automate messages and respond fast to all messages (especially on check-in day)

A lot of problems can be addressed simply by having great automated messages which are sent out to the guest before arrival and during their stay.

For a full list of our personal automated messages and how we send them automatically using channel manager software, join our community at https://bnbfastlane.com if you haven’t already. Or just email us at hello@bnbfastlane.com.

As a bare minimum you should be sending a message as soon as a booking is made which explains that you look forward to welcoming them and when they will be receiving more information about the property (like check-in details). A check-in message on the day of their stay will include all check-in information (you can also include a brief run-down/welcome guide in this message), a ‘touching base’ message 3-24 hours after check-in, and a message upon checkout making sure they have had a great stay.

 

  • Be extra responsive from ‘booking made’ up until 24 hours after check-in

Most issues occur with guests immediately after booking or within the first 24 hours of the stay. You need to be very vigilant during these times. If a guest is stuck outside in the rain unable to access the property at check-in time you need to be responding to them very quickly to make sure it doesn’t dampen their experience

 

  • Give them the opportunity to flag any issues multiple times.

We ask the guest to report any issues about the property for several reasons. Firstly is because if there is an issue we want to get it resolved as fast as possible so that they appreciate our prompt service. Secondly, if it unfortunately gets to the point where they leave a bad review, then we will have evidence for our case that we asked them multiple times to report any problems and they didn’t. Include this in your automated messages.

 

  • Do a great job and try to meet them in person if you’re worried.

If the guest feels that you really care about their experience, then it’s harder to give a bad review. It’s easier to be mean anonymously than over the phone and it’s easier to be mean over the phone than in person.

If you can physically attend the property, speak with the guests and address concerns then it will be more morally difficult for them to leave a scathing review. 

Sometimes the issues they have are mistakes they’ve made themselves, misunderstandings or are easy to solve if you visit the property in person. 

Especially when it’s the guests’ own fault, if you can be helpful and fix it they often feel silly for even getting mad about it and you look like a great host for helping them. 

If it requires a tradesperson to fix you may be able to then soften them up with a gift or something nice like a later checkout (if it works for you). 

Of course some guests are just bad people and will do so anyway, but as long as you try then at least you did all you could.

 

2 – Identifying the warning signs of a problem guest

Some guests are just bad guests. It happens, it’s a part of doing business. Simply by knowing this will help you deal with them when they come along. 

A few warning signs of difficult/bad guests are:

  • The cheapo / rule-bender guest – They are asking for discounts and have annoying requests before making the booking or before check-in. Often demanding early check in or late checkout when your listing says it’s not possible to do so.
  • The ‘I went over budget now it’s your problem’ – They booked the property at a very cheap/discounted rate, often last minute. This is sometimes a guest who has ‘stretched the budget’ to opt for a better accommodation normally outside their budget, so can be overly demanding.
  •  The ‘refund scammer’ or ‘Hobbyist host who thinks they’re better’ – As soon as they arrive at the property they immediately start sending you messages about issues or complaining.
    • This is especially true if they are also sending photos and mentioning the cleaning standard (even though your cleaners do a good job and/or you have checked the property prior).
  • “I don’t do messages, I’ll call anyway” –  They refuse to read your messages properly and try to call your phone multiple times (even though all info is in the messages). This shows a lack of respect for your boundaries and a lack of effort to read the messages you sent.
  • The Professional Whinger – They start to complain about trivial things and minor issues with the property like a single light globe not working or an item which isn’t even listed as a property amenity not working properly.
  • No message etiquette – They are rude or blunt in messages or send barrages of lots of messages. Also guests who just message with tons of questions, many irrelevant to the home itself or answered in your listing.

Chances are if you have to ask yourself ‘I wonder if this is a problem guest’, they are! At this point you should be happy, because you’ve recognized that they may become an issue before they become one.

 

3 – Addressing the issue during a stay or before a guest submits a review

At this point you may have determined that the guest is likely (or certainly) a Problem Guest. But not always, details as follows…

Not yet a ‘problem guest’ but issues happened:

Sometimes issues arise at the property that are out of your control, leaky plumbing, oven stops working, the list goes on. 

This is always a possibility and should be viewed as a cost of business and at the end of the day, this is not a hotel – the guest is renting someone’s private residence and things can happen.

We must be vigilant and rectify issues, preferably before the guest arrives but inevitably things will eventually go wrong during a stay. 

When issues occur – The best thing you can do as a host is address and rectify issues as quickly as possible, for the most part a guest will understand that some things are out of your control but if you’re able to fix them for them immediately they will be more likely to be forgiving. Some guests will go as far as greatly appreciating how responsive you are compared to other hosts (but don’t hold your breath!).

The worst thing you can do is not respond to their issues in a timely manner, ignore them or tell them you will fix it after their stay (especially if it needs immediate attention). This will only frustrate the guest, who has paid to have a great stay in your property. 

Being responsive to issues and rectifying them for the guest will more-often-than-not earn you a lot of favour in their eyes (sometimes the issues can be ridiculous and then we will have a different approach outlined below), but for the most part as long as you do everything in your power to help them, they will most likely be grateful. 

Unfortunately, this may mean that you need to get an electrician to the property at 7pm at night (and wear the cost) but this in the long run will be better than a 1 star review which will cost more in future bookings lost.

(not sure where you want to add this in your numbered sequence) 

 

Once it becomes clear the guest will be an issue

If you’re at the point where you think a guest is highly likely to leave an unfavourable review, unreasonable or not, you must take action to protect your listing. If there have been issues that you’ve helped the guest with or if they were the guest’s fault you must try to keep as much communication through Airbnb messages as possible. Airbnb doesn’t have access to your communication outside of their platform and if things are said in person or over the phone, without documentation and timestamps of messages it’s all just “he said, she said”.

Once you determine a guest may become an issue you must now start “building a case” against them, this may sound extreme but it is your best shot as a host to protect your listing against unreasonable guests. 

You must now open a ticket with Airbnb support (a precautionary measure), inform them to NOT contact the guest (as this will normally make the situation worse), then explain to Airbnb the situation that xyz has happened and/or your guest is breaking xyz rule.

Once you have Airbnb support staff on your side you can further “build your case” against the guest. This is also a good time to mention to the Airbnb support staff that you are worried the guest may leave an unfair or retaliatory review and you would like them to mention this in their notes because if they are allowed to review then you want to make sure it can be easily removed by the Airbnb team.*

 
*It varies depending on which staff member you get as to how effective this point is, but it doesn’t hurt to flag it with them so that you’re not just reacting later on.

NOTE: In the past a 1 star review was much easier to remove, now Airbnb are making it harder and harder. 

We have had an instance of a clear cut retaliatory 1 star on a 4.9 star home with 30+ reviews and they simply would not help us because we didn’t contact Airbnb during the stay to inform them of a potential issue. We went through our normal procedure to try and have the review removed (which previously had a very high win rate) but they refused to help us for not contacting them at first sign of an issue. This is why we now always do the precautionary support call step described above).

Think of this situation with the guest in your property now like a person has just hit your car and is trying to defer guilt to you in an insurance claim. 

Any admission of guilt you can get them to put in writing further secures your chances of beating them in the court of law, this also works the other way if you start admitting fault unnecessarily. 

You know the Airbnb system a lot more than they do, so you need to trigger keywords that you know Airbnb favours and you must use this to your advantage. 

If there are complaints about cleaning, but you have your photo set from the cleaner showing the house perfectly presented before their arrival, then you have ammunition to use in an Airbnb claim, for example. 

Some guest’s know that if they complain about minor things like this, they can at the bare minimum, get Airbnb to refund the ‘cleaning fee’. You can often tell who these people are as they will immediately take a batch of photos of things around the house and send them to you on arrival. See section ‘2 – Identifying the warning signs of a problem guest’ above!

If you don’t know how to protect yourself against these scammers you will also lose a night of booking revenue or possibly even more, depending on how badly Airbnb decides to penalise you for the guest complaint.

You can use your cleaners’ time stamped and dated photos as proof in your messages to Airbnb that the home was professionally cleaned AND checked on by yourself or your manager prior to their arrival. 

Last resorts:

Occasionally what you do will never be enough for some guests and they will genuinely abuse your hospitality. This may be in the form of threats, trying to scam money, or a non stop barrage of demands. 

Guest eviction options and process: It may get to a point where your only resort is to now inform them that they have abused your hospitality and you will no longer accept it. At this point you can threaten to evict them if it does not stop. 

You must contact Airbnb beforehand and get them on your side before doing this using the method above. Inform Airbnb NOT to contact the guest but that the guest has abused your hospitality/has broken your house rules and that it may need to escalate in a possible eviction from the property. 

Inform Airbnb again not to intervene, but that you are keeping them informed that the situation may escalate.  

This will definitely escalate things, often beyond repair, BUT the guests have left you with no choice. Having a record of a support conversation in your Airbnb message thread that you were needing to evict them for breaking your house rules will help you in your Airbnb review dispute. 

It’s normally unlikely you will need to evict, but it can sometimes be enough to get them to STOP with the abuse or at the bare minimum will show Airbnb that this guest has gone too far. 

TIP: Make sure to add in your house rules that any abuse, etc, will result in an immediate eviction so you can refer back to this house rule if it ever comes up in an Airbnb claim. 

 

4 – After a bed review appears, how to get it removed

NOTE: Airbnb guest reviews (and host reviews) cannot be edited, only removed.

If you did all of the above and were able to “build a case” prior to the review being submitted by a problem guest, you now have a much higher likelihood of having it removed. 

It still won’t be easy because Airbnb actively works AGAINST hosts every step of the way, so you will need to consistently contact Airbnb support to take it down and keep persisting well beyond what a normal person would think is reasonable! 

If you haven’t done any of the above and a guest has blindsided you by a bad review you will still need to follow the same procedure, but unfortunately it may be more difficult.Airbnb has made it harder and harder to have reviews removed and due to the incompetence of their initial support staff you are often fighting an uphill battle. 

Below we will outlay the standard procedure for attempting to get a review removed.

TIP: The Number 1 rule with these support emails is to NEVER let the support agent close the ticket, end the conversation or mark this issue as ‘solved’. It will become clearer as you read on.

 

Removing a 1-Star Review from Airbnb

1 star reviews are by far the most damaging and Airbnb will often go to the extent of suspending your listing for reviews like this, so they must be addressed immediately. 

  1. Immediately open a support ticket with the confirmation code and request that the 1 star review be taken down on X grounds (you can refer to the Airbnb review policy for any keyword to add into this part). You can add your side to the story here as well but the likelihood is that the support staff will not read it and will send you a copy/paste response, you can then just copy/paste the same message further into the conversation if need be. 
  2. Airbnb’s first response will not be helpful or even written by a person in most cases. Once you get the copy/paste response, which will have their Airbnb policy in the message, you can then go through their policy and copy/paste the section that this review is in violation of. Retaliation due to enforcement of house rule is often the one that does best, in my experience. 
  3. Now you will most likely get another copy/paste response from the support staff, you must follow this up by asking for a REAL response due to xyz reason stated above, eg, This review is a retaliatory review due to me enforcing my house rule (use their language) of 10am check out when they told me last minute they were going to check out at 1pm, we couldn’t accommodate this due to the cleaner’s schedule, this was informed to them from the start, in retaliation they have now left a 1 star review.
  4. They may at this point send a real response but not side with you, this is where you copy/paste their stated review policy and reiterate the parts of THEIR (Airbnb’s) reviews policy that have been violated by the guest 
  5. The Airbnb support staff will do everything they can to not help you and attempt to close the ticket – you must try and keep this ticket open as long as you can. Continue to reiterate their policy and the violations. If you can find any other rules broken, threats or anything you can add them in and reinforce your position. 
  6. You don’t need to get rude, but the goal here is to keep the ticket open long enough for it to be taken to a higher up staff member. The idea is that the support staff have their KPIs tracked by cases closed. If a case remains open for too long, they will eventually be questioned by a supervisor or next on the ladder team member. 
  7. Stick to your guns 100%, you can go as far as to ask them how we (host & Airbnb) are supposed to have a business relationship when they will not protect their (super)hosts/business partners against malicious guests 
    1. Our turnover for 30-60 properties was in the millions per year, so we would lean on this point as well. “We’ve put $x,xxx,xxx in booking revenue through your platform and you’ve earned $x,xxx,xxx in fees and this is how you want to treat your business partner?”
  8. Keep the ticket open, keep persisting. Continue citing parts of Airbnb’s reviews policy, parts of their guest policy, parts of your house rules and bending them to suit your situation and to why the review needs to be removed. Keep trying to escalate to a team leader who can help more. You can also call their support and reference the conversation if so far all the correspondence has been via messages (sometimes phone calls yield a more lenient response. Always be polite to the agent!).
  9. If they close the ticket, open another! Sometimes the support staff will be sneaky and try to close the conversation, just open another one and reference the original not being solved and that you didn’t agree that you had reached a resolution yet.
  10. Results can vary but this is a good start. This method used to have a much higher win % but Airbnb is never a friend of the host and seems to make it harder as time moves on. 

In future, this is why you must contact Airbnb at first sign of a problem during a guest stay (using the above method) but this may be your only option if you’ve been blindsided by a 1 star, after the guest hadn’t said anything during their stay. 

 

Removing 2-Star and 3-Star Guest Reviews from Airbnb

These are often much harder to remove because Airbnb sees these as ‘the guest’s experience’ so you’ll need to hope and pray that your guest might be reasonable and take it down themselves, otherwise use the above ‘1-star removal’ method again. 

If you’re still on speaking terms with the guest you can contact them and ask if they can remove it themselves by contacting Airbnb. This is the easiest and fastest way to get them removed.

This may not always work because some people are unreasonable. Sometimes they may think that 3 stars IS a good review because they don’t actually know how Airbnb’s rating system works, you can let them know how damaging it is to your listing (or in some cases resulted in your listing being suspended) and ask if they can please contact Airbnb to have it taken down. Make sure to remind them how quick and easy it is for them to do this, they really only need to send a quick message to Airbnb support to do so.

Another benefit of the phone call is that it’s a very subtle reminder that you are a real person, that you have a real issue and that you have their contact number. Obviously don’t actually mention any of this in conversation though!

TIP: Sometimes calling the guest works better than messaging. We often liked to call and ask why they chose to leave such a harsh review and remind them we are real people and we always try our best to give guests a good experience. Sometimes they didn’t even realise their score was that bad. Always be positive, professional and friendly, if you can!

TIP: Whenever a guest makes a reservation, manually write down their phone number as Airbnb hides them after the booking. A Channel Management software is great for this as it will store numbers for you.

If they are nice on the phone and agree to remove it, follow up with them in a nice message thanking them and detailing what you discussed, so that it reminds them and also so that there is a message record in case you still need to go to Airbnb for help.

If they refuse to remove the review, you will unfortunately have to go through the same method as the 1 star removal, it is less likely you’ll be able to get it taken down but it is often worth trying to save your star rating. 

 

Removing a 4-star guest review from your Airbnb Listing

This process is pretty much the same as the previous ‘removing 2/3 stars’ step. However it can go 2 ways.

Best case – Best case scenario is that when you contact the guest and ask why they left a low review score that they actually didn’t realise they did it and that if they knew it was a low score they would have gladly left a 5-star. You can just politely let them know that unfortunately Airbnb penalises you for scores this low and that they consider anything below a 5 to be a problem. (This is true, as you need 4.75 for superhost status and too many 4-stars result in penalties from Airbnb).

Worst case – The guest is awful and they refuse to remove it thinking that they are high and mighty and correct in damaging your listing. This unfortunately happens quite often with 4-star reviews and Airbnb is unlikely to actually remove it (although you should always try to get it removed if you can).

 

If everything fails and you can’t get the review removed:

You will not win every battle here and may have to take some negative reviews on the chin. 

In this instance you will need to reply to the review on your page and inform any other potential guests that this is not a legitimate review due to xyz reasons. 

You can explain the whole situation in your response or just write that this was in retaliation to xyz thing that happened. 

If you need to exaggerate the reasoning or use some playful gaslighting then feel free! The guest cannot respond to your response and they have chosen to screw you over anyway, so you may as well! 

If your home has 10 X 5-stars reviews and 1 X 1-star with a response saying this is not legitimate because this guest, for example, tried to throw a party here and had to be evicted or got a neighbour complaint, etc, then any reasonable person looking at your listing will understand that occasionally you have a few bad eggs come through the property and it won’t hinder your future bookings.

 

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DISCLAIMER! Everything in this article is to be used as a ‘guide’ and for idea purposes only. The steps and opinions and advice are all based purely on our own experience and opinions. Nothing in this is officially sanctioned by Airbnb or any other platform. BNB Fastlane takes no responsibility for anything you do based on using any information in this document. You’re an adult and you know your business and customers well, so please use a level of decorum, tact and best practices. We can only try and help you and provide this guide, but at the end of the day what you decide to do and how is up to you!