I have experienced this a couple of times, both times when there is an event in town the entire town is booked up to 6 months prior to the event. People are desparetly booking Vacation Rental Homes without proper dilegence.

I had an unfortunate incident occur where a guest decided that they wanted to stay in the “host hotel” (I later discovered); rather than our 4/4 bedroom home. They complained that it wasn’t clean enough, so I IMMEDIATELY re-hired the cleaners to return, and the idea was that the cleaners would clean according to their instructions!

There would be no room for complaints about the cleaning when people have different ideas about what should be cleaned.

The unfortunate thing about this was the guests left when the cleaners came, so they were not able to instruct them how they wanted the place clean! Hmmmmmm. not participating in the solution.

When they got back, and the place was cleaned a second time ($200 later); they said they didn’t like the linens. Now this is a 4 bedroom home with about 6 beds. The owner immediately purchased $353. worth of NEW linens and towels. They didn’t like those either. We also recleaned the carpets because they thought they were not clean enough, all this within 24 hours and an unplanned extra expenditure of about $700.

But there was no pleasing these people.

They had made a decision to break their contract, and even though they signed the contract that said “no refunds for early departure, no refunds unless prior to 60 days,” and even though we had done everything to make these people happy legally, morally, ethically, they had their mind made up to move to the “host hotel,” where the rest of the social group was for the sports event that their daughter was participating in.

I had about 30 other calls prior to rent the place during the event, but of course it was booked. I was not able to recover the opportunity to re-rent. I was not able to recover the extra cleaning charge and extra carpet cleaning charge. The linens were OK as they could always be used.

This is an upper end home in one of the nicest areas of town owned by a doctor. It had a gourmet stainless steel kitchen a hot tub jacuzzi, a gym, a deck, a view of the city, 4 bedrooms 4 bathrooms, and it had been cleaned twice, and we even cleaned the carpet a second time.

In speaking to my attorney he said, that the house was habitable, there was heat, electricity, water, roof, and it was sanitary and safe and secure; and that since we made every effort within 24 hours to rectify any problems…imaginary other otherwise, that they were in breach of their contract, not us, and not due a refund, no refund, no refund. According to the law.

The sad thing is by the time the whole ordeal was over they had thoroughly convinced themselves that our place was filthy, etc. So if they were to write a review on any site (which they did not), we would look terrible!

The really unfair thing that happened, in the end they got a refund from Mastercard for the weeks rental! Even though my attorney coached me to provide the paperwork, and testimonies of the hospitality manager, 10 pages of documentation, they got a refund from Mastercard, who took it out of my Pay Pal account. And there’s not talking to those people, apparently they are above the law.

This same kind of thing has happened twice both for large events where there was a social component, one of the guests actually complained about skylights in our condo! The skylights were in the ad, and we were bragging about them! We even brought over eyemasks so that he could sleep in (because of the light from the skylights) and that wasn’t good enough either. The bottom line is that he was offered another place to stay closer to the event and he grabbed it and wanted his money back. So out came the microscope, and the white glove inspection. His main complaint was the skylights and too small of towels which were corrected in the same day.

Now most of the time most of our homes can and do pass a while glove inspection. Our hopitality manager hires and supervises cleaning, and is so obssesive with cleaning he actually cleans AFTER the cleaning people clean. He is MILIARY and there isn’t anyone much more of a perfectionist that he is.

He even cleans on top of door sills! Still homes are homes, they are not “corporate beige predictable,” so if you look long and hard enough, a guest might will fine something to complain about if they are intent on leaving. We even do allergy cleaning If they pay extra. These guests did not pay extra for allergy cleaning, but that is the way they got their money back. Their daughter was had “an asthma reaction to the home.”

That was a hard lesson to learn. Because this scenario, and because of so many “rookie guests” are entering the Vacation Rental Venue, trying to save over the hotel room, we have produced a proactive solution to this potential behavior.

Of course, screening is super important, but also so is setting a professional tone, so guests won’t consider you a push-over, and get the idea that since you aren’t a big multi-national corporation, that he/she can break his contract with you without consequences.

But how do you do this? You are like this one man show, with subcontractors, website, and laptop, and these kinds sense your kindness for a weakness.

One Solution: I have created a GUEST ETIQUETTE E-book, that Vacation Rental Owners may e-mail out with their guests check-in informaton, and may also leave a copy in the home. It explains the vacation rental venue is different that the hotel venue and defines common courtesty in this environment to the guest who may have some very unrealistic expectations of vacation rentals.

If guests start to get an idea about leaving early, (and exepcting to get an unmerited, undeserved refund) to go to something “better, cheaper, closer,” at the expense of tying up your home, the Ettiquette booklet they have been given prior to arrival and upon arrival has already set the tone for proper guest ettiquette and consideration! Vacation Rental Home Owners are People, too!

His point was that if there was some debate or argument between renter and the owner (and we know that not all renters are perfect), the renter can use the review mechanism as a way to damage the reputation of the cottage owner.

The bottom line is that this owner asked me to remove all his three listings from our site just because of the independent reviews feature…

Our rental agency uses http://www.flipkey.com to invite reviews from our guests. We don’t edit these reviews in any way. Our owners have sight of all the reviews on their property and we rarely see negative ones. However we have inspected all our cottages and work closely with our owners to help them create the type of place our renters will enjoy.

It’s a little different with a listing site as you have no control over the quality of the properties listed. However, giving your owners the option to remove or modify reviews defeats the object of requesting testimonials. If your owners are confident they are offering value for money; comfortable accommodation and have been 100% honest in their listing, they should have no worry about the review process.

I am just wondering if you get cottage owners notified when they get negative or positive feedback? And does the cottage owner have the ability to remove/modify the post she/he does not like?

Thanks,
Max

Reminded me that we have an outside light in a box waiting to be fitted!

On the serious side – it does highlight how much thought has to go into the detail when you are in the vacation rental business! I’m sure some people think we have an easy life just changing bedlinen!

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