First Summer at VRBO Host-all good til the terrible guest leaves a mess for Maid

[Mary Kaye pepperman]

How do you handle a guest who leaves the house a mess, smokes in the house and leaves the evidence when we have a clear rule of no smoking and enters a locked owners closet and takes items. We need one more 5 star review to get to premier host and based on the text message they thought house was lovely and had a great time? Do we wait for a review? Does insurance cover the extra cleaning costs or is this just part of it? How can I see the guests ranking in VRBO? Thanks from a Newbie!

[Bruce Woodruff]

Don't waste time chasing the 5 stars, they will come if you are any good. You are a Host and will have 100s of reviews soon. They are a Guest and even the busy ones only have 5 reviews or so. So their bad review means nothing to you, but your 1 star review will destroy them.

In my opinion, horrible guests like this need to be held accountable - a) so you can get money back, b) so they don't hurt future hosts, you owe it to your fellow hosts to put a black mark on these people's account. And then follow up with VRBO for max damages!