New National Survey from Automatic Trap Company Shows 88% of Travelers Will Give a 1-Star Rating If a Rodent is Seen at a Vacation Rental Property

Airbnb, rental, hotel, and motel owners take note – a new national survey revealed that 88% of people will not hesitate to give a 1-Star rating to an Airbnb if a mouse is seen – even just once.

Automatic Trap Company, the leader in self-resetting traps that are humane and eco-friendly pest control solutions, announced today that its new national survey of more than 400 travelers revealed that any issue with rats or mice could doom a rental or hotel property – especially an Airbnb property. Sixty-three percent of people said that rodents would be the most serious issue they could experience at an Airbnb – worse than noise, bad odors, or unruly neighbors.

In fact, the survey found that pests far outweigh other common guest complaints. Only 15.8% of respondents listed odors as their top concern, followed by noisy neighbors (6.5%), broken appliances (5%), dirty dishes (4.3%), uncomfortable temperatures (3.3%), and street noise (2%). Rodents, by contrast, topped the list by a wide margin.

"Travelers staying at an Airbnb or other type of property aren't wrong to be very concerned with seeing a mouse or rat," said Blair Calder, President of Automatic Trap Company. "Rodents do carry serious diseases that are directly transmissible to humans such as hantavirus, leptospirosis, rat-bite fever, salmonellosis, lymphocytic choriomeningitis, plague, and tularemia. Indirect transmissible diseases humans can catch from the ticks, fleas, and mites that have been on rodents include Lyme disease, murine typhus, and rickettsialpox. Our survey shows that the public is very aware of the dangers of rodents in living spaces – especially after the national news story of the tragic death of Gene Hackman and Betsy Arakawa. Rodent eradication should be top-of-mind for any Airbnb host."

The damage isn’t limited to just a drop in guest comfort, it directly impacts ratings. The survey found that 88.3% of respondents said that seeing a mouse would lower the rating they give, and nearly half (48.5%) would give a 1-star cleanliness rating after seeing a mouse, with more than 73% rating cleanliness at 2 stars or lower. These findings suggest that even a single pest incident can tank an Airbnb’s reputation overnight.

That effect extends to the overall guest experience. 39% of respondents said they would give a 1-star overall rating after seeing a mouse, and nearly two-thirds (64%) would give 2 stars or lower. Pest problems don’t just hurt a property’s cleanliness score—they drag down the entire perception of the stay.

While the most obvious sign of a rodent infestation on a vacation rental property is seeing a mouse or rat, by the time one is seen there can be dozens more already present due to the fact that rodents reproduce aggressively. The next most common sign is small dark brown mouse droppings, a little smaller than an uncooked grain of rice in size. Anything that looks like a small nest from fabric or material is also a sign of mouse infestation. Chew marks on packages are another clue – as are scratching sounds in the walls as rodents prepare a nest for another litter of mouse pups.

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