Unfortunately, as a well-seasoned super-host I do not recommend booking.
There were many issues:
-the house smells of a greasy cooking smell
-3 downstairs bedrooms smell of damp (one of our guys moved rooms because of it)
-There were hairs left in a shower
-Urine was left on a toilet
-Kitchen drawers full of debris
-Kitchen cupboards dirty (my wife cleaned them)
-Some crockery was dirty, oven was dirty etc.
-Skirting boards thick with dust.
-We were given 6 toilet rolls for 16 nights
-The host asked what beds hadn’t been slept in on departure so she knew what linen was needed. We had lived around the bed not used for 2.5weeks...
We didn’t say anything, cleaned up and got on with it.
10 days after our stay Lisa put through a charge for additional cleaning costs and provided false accusations:
- Some cigarette filters had gone down the side of a sofa. They jumped to conclusions that we had smoked in the house and accused us of this many times (apparently it smelled of smoke which was impossible). This was a business trip, only one of my employees smoke and the rest of us are non-smokers so wouldn’t let anyone smoke inside anyway, but we were not to be believed. Bear in mind Lisa had not seen the house herself.
- They found some beer caps that had fallen under the sofa over the 2.5 weeks and accused us of ‘party central’ and were surprised the neighbours didn’t complain. The reason the neighbours didn’t complain is we were actually 4 men, waking up at 5.30am for work often returning home at 5pm. After a knackering day we would all have a couple of beers before bed by 9.30pm. Just to demonstrate the kind of people we are; we went to the pub just one night over our stay and was still home by 11pm. Old way before our time...
- Lisa’s bin got stolen and she accused us of leaving it on the kerb for too long. We had taken them back in the same day.
- She accused us of having more guests than the 4 as booked staying, rather rudely. When we booked I checked the price for both 5 adults and 4 adults as my wife wasnt sure if she would visit, there was no difference in price so I booked at 4 guests without much thought as it would be 4 for the vast majority regardless. My wife then did decide to come up for 3 of the 16 nights, rather last minute. She shared my bed and the house actually slept 10 people so I didn’t even think to mention it. Once questioned we very honestly explained the above and were then told we were dishonest. As hosts of a 5 bed house, our guest numbers change regularly and we certainly would be happy for a booking of just 4-5 guests to give our neighbours a break and wouldn’t think twice to question it.
- She complained that the oven, microwave, fridge, under the sofa and under the bed was left messy/dirty. Now let me accept that we are not the cleanest of guys. 4 of us cooked every night and most guests wouldn’t cook so often so no doubt created more mess than most. We did however clean all the surfaces we could see in the house and vacuumed before we left, remembering the issues with cleanliness at the start of our stay. We paid a $250 cleaning fee and the cleaner charged $147 more for our stay, after 2.5 weeks. Longer stays = More mess and this should be built into pricing. As hosts we always pay our cleaner for extra time after stays for more than a week - it’s just standard practice and common sense. If the host was pleasant in the approach of cleanliness issues we would have responded very differently.
- As hosts, we genuinely would not have left a house in a condition that we didn’t think was acceptable, and do apologise for some oversights on our part but they were just that, oversights. Perhaps if we had seen the bottle caps under the sofa and cleaned them up, so many judgements wouldn’t have been made about the type of people we were (my wife does always give me a hard time over leaving beer caps about the house!) We certainly would never expect any of our guests to clean an oven or a microwave so wouldn’t have even thought to.
- No photos of this supposed mess were provided.
Lisa complained about how we didn’t answer the phone before the stay, I was genuinely just busy trying to run my business and prepare for this job. She said she sent us T&Cs. Actually, from reading back on my messages Lisa forgot our checkin date and asked me for my email address after we had arrived...we never received those T&Cs until after Lisa complained. If we had it may have been a red flag as they are SO long...(there are rules everywhere in the house too).
This was our third business trip to Byron using Airbnb, with the same crew and this is the first time we have had an issue.
You will see in Lisa’s responses to other guests complaints of an inability to accept some things could be less than perfect. The guest is usually wrong and no doubt we are. We weren’t going to leave a review as we know how much energy goes into running a holiday home, know how things can go amiss, and we prefer to avoid confrontation over issues. This was until our honesty and integrity were questioned.
I hope this review leads to improvements in cleanliness, less judgements, and more tolerance for future hard-working guests. Asking kindly for a contribution to costs would certainly go a long way.