Guest complains about cleanliness - How should I respond?

Question

Ugh - not the morning I was hoping for! A guest sent a note last night (after I went to bed) that the toilet was not clean. I was very responsive to her this morning (at 5am her time) and sent $75 through the platform. Then after I sent the discount, she sent more complaints about bedding, stating,
"It was also brought to my attention the bedding had stains on stains in almost every bed and some of us decided to sleep on the floor. I’ve attached pictures for you to see.

She is right, there are some spots on the bedding - nothing that would have made me sleep on the floor for (especially since there were spare comforters for each bed in the closets), but still disappointing and fair feedback.  I have asked my cleaner to change out the duvet covers.  I realize that I need to get a process in place to make sure the comforter covers are getting cleaned on some frequency...

My questions for you folks are: How do I respond to the guest now?  She is checking out right about now and was only a one night booking - so not much chance to make it right.  Do I refund her the night?  What should I say?  Should I have waited for her to check out to give her the $75?  Part of me wonders if the bedding stuff surfaced because she was looking for more refund $... (Either way I'm happy to have the feedback on the bedding so I can fix it going forward, just not sure if I handled this as well as I could have) .  Also, what is your cleaning protocol around comforters / duvet covers?  How often are they cleaned?

Thank you for the help and moral support here on this bummer host day! - Melissa

Brook Rieman · Answer

To be honest those stains would freak me out, too. I would suggest you switch to all white bedding and white duvet covers which are removed and beached between guests. Stains are still a battle but it’s super important in my opinion. As for the guest, I would have done the same, offered a refund. I would honestly probably refund their entire stay in this case.

Ken Boone · Answer

This is how we do it...  It doesn't happen often thankfully but every now and then something like this comes up.  I had guests check in a few weeks ago that when they pulled back the covers there was dried blood on the sheets.. This was at 11pm.  I called my cleaner had them take sheets out there right away.  I apologized to the guests and agreed that that is not acceptable and I would be horrified to see that as well.  I talked with my cleaner and she told me that the downstairs bedroom mattress bed had to be taken off and cleaned because there was a lot of blood on it.  Now where the guests found the blood stains was on the top floor bed.  My cleaners do a very good job and I have full faith in them.  I think what happened is something probably got dropped and mixed up while they were changing sheets and possible the clean sheets bumped the dirty sheets or something like that.  Things just happen.

So basically - my first rule of thumb when a guests calls with a legitimate complaint is to agree with them and let them know you are just as dissatisfied as they are and you are going to do whatever it is to try and make it right.  If it is a cleaning issue, I tell them I will re-send my cleaner back over to take care of it.  If the cleaner missed something - which will happen because they are people and they do make mistakes just like we do - then cleaner has no problem correcting the issue.  By offering to send the cleaner over immediately, it also mitigates the seriousness of the issue. I had one guests who complained about how dirty things were when at 11pm at night after they had been there since 4pm.  Well I myself was at that cabin after the cleaner at 3pm and knew darn well it was spotless.  I was actually in town and told the guests I will be there in 15 mins to take care of those issues for them and they immediately backed down oh no no thats not necessary.  I knew these were folks just trying to get some money back and there were no cleaning problems based on everything they told was wrong.

Now if it is something I cannot correct while they are there - i.e. This happened to me last week.  Took a lightning hit that took out the 65" living room TV, both direcTv receivers, the xbox, the controls on the virtual pinball table and the blu ray player.  Nothing I can do about that stuff during their stay.  I contact them again the morning they are checking out and explain to them we try to keep our cabins in tip top shape and you can see this based on past reviews but sometimes things happen that is beyond our control, nevertheless they agreed to pay a certain amount of money for a cabin with x amenities and they didn't get what they paid for and then I tell them I am going to refund XXX to attempt to make it up to them.

I try to live by the Golden Rule - Treat others the way you want to be treated.

Once you have done all that, you just need to mitigate a bad review - and that is by following up stating the same things..  I was horrified as well to find out that the sheets were dirty, normally my cleaners do an excellent job and I will be following up with them on this issue to make sure this doesn't happen again kind of thing.

What I found though is that the guests who are just trying to get your money typically don't leave a review.  Guests that did have  a legitimate problem, if handled right works out in your favor as they tend to give you a 5 star review and the review generally says something like we had a small incident but the hosts took care of it immediately - which is exactly what you want to have happen in those reviews.

Things do happen - the after effects generally depend on how we handle the situation - and then you have some folks that are just jerks and there is nothing you can do other than what you think is right and that is that.

Luke Carl · Answer

@Melissa Bovee

Your mistake was sending them money. These guests happen. Not common. But you've just been catfished. Or whatever you want to call it.I would have apologized and then ignored. BUT it's difficult to give a real world example of what I would have done without seeing EVERY message on the thread.

At this point... you're done. All communication with this guest should stop in my opinion. There's nothing you can do to make them happy.

Good thing about STR is they'll be gone very soon. Focus on the next one.

Denise H. · Answer

I think Ken has great advice on how to respond but I agree with Brook that duvets should be cleaned between each guest, especially in the current environment.

Melissa Bovee · Answer

Hi all! I really appreciate all the feedback and this incident initiated me looking into updated processes.  I want to share the research I found digging through previous forum posts and the decisions I have made so far.

Washing all Bedding: Several people wash everything every time and several say they don't. I deiced that I want to start washing duvets each time at least during this COVID pandemic.  I am remote from my unit so just having this on auto-pilot will give me piece of mind.

The cheapest way to accomplish this is to use triple sheeting to make the bed: http://blog.americanhotel.com/triple-sheet-your-beds-in-6-easy-steps/ (from @John D. Rental Property Investor from La Quinta, CA) It saves in labor making beds and laundry cost as there is one less layer to wash in comparison to duvet covers.  The downside of triple sheeting is that for longer stays, it can sort of fall apart, exposing the duvet or blanket.  I also read that it is not great for kids who are known by all parents to sleep in all sorts of contorted ways :).

For these reasons, I chose to eat the extra cost of changing and cleaning the duvet covers each time. The duvet covers I'm using came with my unit and they do have some spots here and there that don't come out.  This is never going to review well (although knock on wood I haven't gotten anything but a 5 yet, but I'm still very green at only 11 reviews. The guest from this incident did not review me!) I decided to purchase new white duvets that could be bleached if needed and washed in high heat. @Denise H. mentioned Ikea for nice looking but inexpensive duvets and I went with this one for all 7 of my beds.  I got 2 sets of course!

Laundry: In my research I found that there are different ways people tackle this issue and I am happy to realize all the options I have.

• Commercial Service - (from Bill Higgins Investor from Austin, Texas, John D. Rental Property Investor from La Quinta, CA)
• Carry Away (many do this)
• Extra washer/dryer (at least one mention)

My small town (Tahoe City) does have a local wash and fold that will turn laundry around next day for $1.45 per lb.  You know I calculated this out for the standard weights... with queen single sheets at 800g, twin at 250g and pillow cases at 150g, the cost of my 5 queen beds and 2 twins with duvet covers (4 sheets per bed) works out to $69, and the cost with triple sheeting (3 sheets per bed) works out to $55 per turn.

Most people seem to have the housekeeper either do laundry on site or carry it away depending on the size of the crew and their optimal timing at the unit (and number of loads per turn). I have a new housekeeper coming this week to walk through and I asked her to give me one quote including doing the bed laundry (knowing at least some would be carry away) and one for using the commercial service.  I imagine it is overall cheaper for the housekeeper to do it, but I am open to whatever option the housekeeper prefers. Either way, I want towels done on site because they are heavy and I don't have a full second set just yet. When I do get more towels I will go with Costco Grandeur Hospitality which get a lot of love on this forum.

That is it for now on my progress and research report.  I hope everyone is doing well!!

Best, Melissa

John Dean · Answer

@Melissa Bovee I’ve been hosting for years and it really depends on the length of stay and the type of property you offer. I think offering a discount does not solve the problem and when a guest comes to you with a problem you need to solve it, not send them money. This is something I started testing about 1 year into hosting and it works well. You are all on the same side of trying to provide a good guest experience and money should only play a part if it is directly solving their problem (ex they went to Walmart and picked up new sheets so you reimburse them and keep those new sheets)

John Colburn · Answer

I would be concerned the cleaners left the comforters in that condition for the guest.   With Covid we clean the comforters for every guest.   Guest now more that ever take cleanliness very serious.

Someone earlier mentioned having two sets of sheets that you can have the cleaner take back home and clean during the week.   This is much more efficient, and has been working well for us this year.

My biggest concern is not receiving a 5 star rating, and I know someday it will come.

Ken Boone · Answer

@Mark Miles - I agree.  I want to provide a top notch  cabin for my guests and that means making sure things are in tip top shape and working as they should be.  I try to have anything that breaks repaired immediately or at least as soon as feasibly possible.  Making yourself stand out is important and I think helps with the $$$.

Paul Sandhu · Answer

I've encountered the same thing after they stayed one night.  I refunded 100% of their money and told them politely to g.t.f.o. and stay in a f'n motel.  The 3 guys were refinery contractors.  In the next 3 weeks I rented out 6 other places to EVERY one of their co-workers with no complaints.  They called me back and rented a place again.  Will be here until December, all of them.

Michael Baum · Answer

Sounds like a good plan @Melissa Bovee! Gratz on getting it all sorted. Keep us posted on how it goes.

Guest complains about cleanliness - How should I respond?

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