GATLINBURG — Lyle Whaley, who manages eleven rental cabins off Cherokee Orchard Road, has sent the booking site’s review-removal team a written warning from the Gatlinburg Police Department four times since Tuesday, each time in a slightly different category.
The warning was left on the door of a cabin after an officer saw a bag of kitchen trash on the back deck, put there by guests who had checked out that morning. It says the property unknowingly fed a bear and that a repeat carries a fine. Whaley says that makes it a review, since it has his name on it and he didn’t ask for it.
“I’ve had bad reviews. Somebody said the hot tub wasn’t hot. You can dispute those, there’s a form,” Whaley said. “This one, there’s a dropdown that says ‘This reviewer did not stay at the property,’ and I picked that, and then it wants the dates of the stay. There aren’t any dates. I put the date of the warning and it kicked it back.”
Whaley said the site’s first reply asked him to upload a screenshot of the review, so he photographed the warning on the hood of his truck and uploaded that. The next was a form letter signed “Dana,” and Whaley does not think Dana is a person.
He also called the police department to ask who had written the warning. A clerk offered to explain the ordinance. “I know what it says,” Whaley said. “I just wanted to know who it was, since he was out on my deck.”
He has since put a latch on the cabin’s dumpster. On Friday the review-removal team wrote back to say it was still looking into the matter, and enclosed a coupon for ten percent off a featured listing.