So we stayed at a place for one night at the w/e.

All the reviews were positive, but reading between the lines some of them might be on the same lines as writing a reference,. IE they don’t say anything bad by stating only the positives.

The positives: friendly host, easy walk in to town, easy access, quirky house.

The negatives: dirty kitchen, lounge – an electrical H&S nightmare. The guy is a musician & grahics designer (& I guess 6Music listener! but that is irrelevant & to be fair a +ve IMO) & I have never seen such a dodgy mess of cabling with countless extension blocks & adaptors all connected & piled up in a dusty heap.

So do I leave a similar ‘positive’ review or do I say it as it is ?

Reviews mean nothing unless they’re truthful.

I’d feed back to the owner in the first instance.  The review I left would be based on an attitude test.

Be honest, he might get his act together and sort it out, do you feel you get value for money?

Be honest – you rate out of 5 stars anyway & just be brief in your public review, maybe go a little more into the issues in the private feedback.

As a host, if you get less than a 4.7 average, Airbnb get on your case.

And while some Airbnb places are basically buy to let, when you’re renting a spare room in a house you live in, it’s difficult to keep the place as clean and tidy as a hotel room. Though people expect that although they’re paying a third of the price of a hotel who have employed cleaners etc.

Just to give another side…

When I’ve used Airbnb I’ve always been honest, none of this skirting around the issues.

But then I’ve always stayed in really nice places and everything has been great.

Hard to deploy a bad review when everything has been great, but that wouldn’t stop me from writing an honest review if things weren’t as described.

Air BnB is very good a filtering negative aspects from reviews. The way the forms are set up it’s hard to get negative stuff to display.

Write what you want basically but don’t expect anyone to see it. They want as much decent looking accommodation available to sell as possible and your negative review doesn’t help that.

I’ve learned through bitter experience to read air bnb reviews carefully to pick up hints and check things like streetview.

And while some Airbnb places are basically buy to let, when you’re renting a spare room in a house you live in, it’s difficult to keep the place as clean and tidy as a hotel room. Though people expect that although they’re paying a third of the price of a hotel who have employed cleaners etc.

But cleanliness is a surely the easiest thing to do? I wouldn’t want to stay somewhere that is dirty & grimy.

Well, quite.

I expect compromises when staying somewhere cheap. Sitting in someone else’s filth isn’t one of them.  AirBnB have a “service charge” to cover this.

Just be aware that owners can and do review the feedback you have previously given and may refuse to let to you on that basis. Obviously less of an issue with the instant book places, but even still possible with those through cancellation.

Airbnb host here…

The star rating is more important than the words you write. Airbnb have a tendency to bury negative comments down the reviews, but as has already been mentioned, hosts with less than stellar star ratings get quickly pulled up by Airbnb, and their listing will quickly slide down the results. Though the star system is pretty biased towards 5 star ratings, so a 4 star isn’t great, 3 star would indicate something pretty terrible, anything less than that and you are staying in a shithole.

Also because the negative reviews can be buried, feeding back to the host about what could be better is important. Again Airbnb tend to hit hosts over the head if they get several bad reviews for the same problem over and over again

I’ve been thinking about starting the same topic! I’ve spent the last four weeks in three airbnb in Denmark. The last one had quite a bit of hair and dust on the floor and the shower was dirty, I could live with it but many would complain. I gave 4/5 for cleanliness and wrote what the issue was on the form, it said it was private between me and host but I noticed my cleanliness score affected his overall cleanliness score, which I felt a bit bad about.

The one I’m in now isn’t great despite 5 star reviews, downstairs is a chain smoker so the smoke comes into this flat and all my clothes smell. It’s faaaaairly clean though the floor is obviously unwashed and the sofa smells of wee, the kitchen sink had bits of food in it. Also the TV downstairs is on super loud from 8am until about midnight, luckily I have good earplugs. Thing is no previous reviews mention any of this apart from one person mentioning cleanliness.

The thing is the hosts being nice is influencing my scoring, which maybe it shouldn’t. I suspect it’s the same for most people. I paid a bit more for the first one which turned out to be a hosting company and that was noticeably cleaner than the two private ones…

Are they charging hotel/bed and breakfast or digs style rates?

If its grubby and they are charging £100 a night then moan, if it’s super cheap then you have to assess the overall picture.  It might be that’s all you’ll get at that price.

Most airBNB people are in it for the cash ,unlike me I let my flat for theatre people, and charge bargain basement price for 5 star cleanliness and facilities but know that the flat is not fancy/workshop biased and make no secret to my guests.

It’s faaaaairly clean though the floor is obviously unwashed and the sofa smells of wee, the kitchen sink had bits of food in it. Also the TV downstairs is on super loud from 8am until about midnight, luckily I have good earplugs. Thing is no previous reviews mention any of this apart from one person mentioning cleanliness.

The thing is the hosts being nice is influencing my scoring, which maybe it shouldn’t. I suspect it’s the same for most people.

Sod how nice somebody is, if it smells of piss and is noisy and you can’t sleep then give them 1/5 sounds shit.

Yeah it’s cheap for CPH, £75 a night, which given it’s a nice apartment might suggest it’s less than it would be without the issues. I think people get used to their own funk and don’t notice it. The smoke does suck.

 I think people get used to their own funk and don’t notice it. The smoke does suck.

Oh and grow a pair, put on a foreign accent, pretend not to be British and tell them about it in person if you don’t want to leave a review

Dunno what “CPH” is, but £75/night isn’t cheap.  I stayed in palatial places in the US for around £40/night recently.  A wing of someone’s house and a floor of someone else’s.

My parents are serial air bnb moaners.

Most recent unforeseeable travesty was a grubby Spanish apartment in, it seems, an “up and coming” part of town.

Price: £17.50 a night.

Oh, them.

“One star, the neighbours were listening to music at 10pm.”

Dunno what “CPH” is, but £75/night isn’t cheap.  I stayed in palatial places in the US for around £40/night recently.  A wing of someone’s house and a floor of someone else’s.

I’m guessing Copenhagen. How do you know £75 a night isn’t cheap in Copenhagen  ? I’ve found the Scandi countries expensive so it may be very cheap.

I’ve found the Scandi countries expensive so it may be very cheap.

I guess that means sofa smelling of piss is OK then.

Yeah it’s cheap for CPH, £75 a night, which given it’s a nice apartment might suggest it’s less than it would be without the issues. I think people get used to their own funk and don’t notice it. The smoke does suck.

Have you tried the Adina Appt Hotel?  I don’t think I paid much more if anything last year.

Regarding the expense – we let our spare room, our base price is £23, an extra guest costs £4.00 (that will usually involve an additional load of washing) & a cleaning charge of £5.00 we keep our house immaculate & the room is pristine, but basic.

Looking in Bath recently & if we wanted something self catering & private for 2 nights we were looking upwards of £160, so we decided to stay in a B&B for the same price.

£75 is nearly half the average for copenhagen. That adina appt hotel is coming in at £172 a night. London is cheap compared to here!

Be honest for 3 reasons

1. It gives the owner the chance to fix it for other guests.

2. Air BnB relies on honest feedback for other guests to make their decisions

3. Its not fair on the owners who are doing it properly but dont get the business if someone not doing it properly gets the business instead

be honest and hard.  Dirty bathroom – 1/5  sofa smelling of wee – 1/5.

Unless people review honestly then its a worthless exercise as Chris says