must be a year of bad reviews. I just got a 2-star review on otherwise 98% 5-star and remaining 4-star property over stuff which , like yours, was covered in communications and rental agreement (which apparently they did not read). I am a tad more philosophical about it, I resigned myself to thinking that sooner or later anyone in VR business is BOUND to have a bad review - from people who have unrealistic expectations, never stayed in a VR and expect hotel room service type of deal, do not read, are generally unhappy, had a fight with their S.O. or all of the above. Just sit on it, and then respond item by item factually. I made a numbered list in which I addressed all of my reviewer's claims factually and concluded that "we hope that next time this guest will find a vacation rental that suits their needs and expectations better'. That's it. If the review is an outlier, treat it as such.

The first thing you have to do is take the emotion out of your response.

Perhaps you write something like:  To our future guests, we take great pride in our property, as you can see from our many stellar reviews.   Our 1940's lake home has much of the charm you'd expect from this generation (I'm sure there's a better way to word this, I'm just shooting from the hip), The stairs are indicative of the generation of our home, but they are not that tricky to navigate, we promise.   Being so close to the woods and the water, we anticipate some of nature's critters to enter our lake house, which is why we regularly schedule pest treatment (as an aside, you might want to make SURE there hasn't been an infestation... just because you hire someone to treat, doesn't necessarily mean they have proactively stopped infestations before they occur).  We can assure you there are no issues there.

The owner's property is located adjacent to our lakehouse, but no worries about privacy!  After all, we didn't even notice when THIS family unexpectedly brought a dog!      

We look forward to hosting YOU for your next family vacation. 

I'm sure others will come up with a better way to word this.  Write your response in a word document, take some of my wording, take some wording from whomever posts next, etc., then sit on it for a few hours, or until tomorrow.  In situations like this, my first response would NEVER be my best one, and it would take me awhile to be able to write a response I'd want to own for eternity! 

SMH at the exaggerations and details of various heights. If it was impossible to exit the downstairs bathroom, does that mean they are still there?

Seriously, refer to your many 5 star reviews. Mention you were surprised by the review because they wrote in your guest book Hosts were gracious and accommodating, house is great.  Dock and fishing were even better.  This lake house made the long drive to see grandpa…GREAT!  My 3 boys love this place.

Taking the high road is good, but I would mention the guests were upset because you charged them to repair damages done to your VR by the pet snuck in to your no pet rental. You are aiming your review at future guests. Let future guests be warned not to bring a pet and that they are responsible if they cause damages..

Just happened to me too! Killed my 5 star streak. This is our 3rd property and I learned from the 1st two that the sting would come sooner or later. There are always those people out there that you will never EVER be able to please. "Chronic Complainers". "Nothing is Ever Perfect People". So what I did was took a deep breath, pulled up a blank work doc. and started typing a draft, going point by point with a smile on my face. I let it sit/stew, then went back later and revised as necessary. Always remember to talk to future guests while addressing the complainer. Turn your good into bad. When I see places that have all 5 star reviews and only 1 or so poor ones, I like to zoom in on the lonely poor reviews merely for entertainment - just to see what kind of idiots are out there, and I like to see how the responses are handled. So smile and let the smile shine through in what you write.

Based on the information you provided, this is a retaliatory review.  You may want to consider being "professionally candid" in your reply.  Otherwise, you are just relegated to defending point by point.  Here's a suggested draft from an earlier post from an owner who had a similar retaliatory review:

We're committed to making sure that all our guests are thoroughly satisfied and our overall 5-star rating prior to these guests demonstrates our commitment.  This guest happily checked out and remarked in our guestbook that they enjoyed the house immensely, and had nothing but positive things to say.  However, our cleaning service discovered damage from an undisclosed pet.  Regrettably, this guest made the decision to submit this retaliatory review upon being notified that their damage deposit was used to pay for repairs and extra professional cleaning.  We are glad that we were able to make professional repairs and restore the house to top-notch quality for our future guests to enjoy.  We invite you to continue reading all of our other reviews from our delighted guests!

P.S. Most readers will be savvy enough to detect that the guest is nitpicking, so I would avoid a point-by-point response to each petty complaint. Just let the facts speak for themselves and it will be obvious that the 1-star review is without merit (especially considering that you have otherwise positive reviews).

I agree with the suggestion made by several others to NOT address the issues they list on a point-by-point basis.  It makes you look defensive and, in the words of the immortal bard "the lady doth protest too much".

I like what scowol wrote, but I might leave substitute "inaccurate" for "retaliatory".  That way, you are criticizing the review and not the reviewer.  Future potential guests will understand the reviewer was upset when they wrote the review, but YOU are not ascribing any motives to the reviewer.

I agree: do NOT go through it point by point, you're dignifying their slander with a response. It was the same with us. Just explain to future renters that they loved the place until you charged them a very fair damage deposit and you would do it again. Something like:

Okay, this is what really happened: we had no complaints from this guest and a very flattering guestbook entry. However, when we discovered that they had brought their dog into our No Pets property and asked them to pay for the (considerable) damage caused, suddenly they turned salty. Please refer to our many other reviews to get an idea of what our property is really like.

I had a guest who had a terrible time finding my place (not sure why GPS gets everyone here no issues). Anyway by the time they got here they were so upset they called and read me the riot act about not providing directions that clearly got them here without the difficulty that they had. (didn’t ask why they didn’t call on the way). Anyway, that spiraled into the wife adding that there was a dead fly on the window sill. I apologized for them having such a difficult time finding the place and asked if they would like my cleaning lady who lived two doors down to come and remove the dead fly. They declined and I heard nothing further. They didn’t leave a review (thankfully).

I do think that people can get very wound up and decide to be upset about things that normally wouldn’t upset them and it takes them time to calm down again. Sorry that you are dealing with such people and that they wrote a review while still upset instead of calming down and putting themselves in your position.