We recently completed an Airbnb stay over the Labor Day weekend. Without going into detail about our stay, let's just say it was less than perfect and some of the things we disliked have obviously been present for months/years, yet no reviewer bothered to mention some of this glaring issues. So imagine my reaction to this message from our host that arrived shortly after Airbnb asked me to provide a review of the property.

It basically begs us to shield the deficiencies from future guests, while reserving our negative commentary to direct messages with the host. What's especially galling is that we are asked to ignore things out of the control of the host, i.e. leave those things out of our rating. But if the issue is neighborhood noise, poor lighting/poor upkeep in common spaces (in a condo complex), someone should speak up and give others a heads up, don't you think?

Here is the message we received:

"Thanks again for your recent stay! You were a pleasure to host and we appreciate you choosing our property! We hope we provided a 5 star stay, because that is what we always strive for for our guests! [so far, so good]

If you have a moment we would love some positive feedback. [Yes but what if my experience wasn't positve?]

As a small business it is very important for our bookings and company to gain positive reviews of our properties. Hosting is our livelihood, and we employ many local individuals within our community, so negative reviews or even any review under 5 star can unfortunately affect our business and our staff's livelihood. [Uh, please give me the directions to this planet where no one's wages is dependent on performance/meeting expectations.]

We always aim for 5 star stays, but we know since these are homes and not hotels things can/may occur. If there was anything you felt was unsatisfactory or requires attention that is within our control, we do kindly ask that you provide that information in a **private message to us*\* rather than a public review. [Yes, thanks to previous guests who honored this request, you did not find out about the things that required attention at the home you just paid us for.]

Being our guests and reviews are so important to us, this allows us the opportunity to contact the homeowners to resolve whatever it may be to our fullest potential for all our future guests. We can't fix something if we don't know, so we ask that you privately make us aware. We would rather no review at all than a review that will hurt our business.

Please consider, there may be factors completely out of our control, and we ask that you be kind to us directly regarding anything we cannot solely rectify ourselves. [So if there are homeless people camped out on the steps leading up to our apartment, don't mention that detail because this was out of our control!]

We appreciate your stay and hope you take a 5 star review process into consideration.

Again all the best and hope to have you back at anyone of our properties in the future! You are welcome back any time!"