Thinking of Using Airbnb? Think Again.
If you’re thinking of using Airbnb as an alternative to a hotel, bed and breakfast, or other type of accommodation, I urge you to read this first.
Our Airbnb nightmare lasted four days and ruined my daughter’s college graduation weekend, as well as my mother’s 70th birthday celebration. Know the risks you’re taking before you use Airbnb.
I have been wrestling with my thoughts for the past year. Given some factors, including a recent, poignant conversation with a stranger, and some current articles I’ve read about Airbnb, I’ve decided to publish my story. This is bad news:
“When it comes to lodging, Waliszewski said that short-term rentals such as Airbnb and VRBO could outperform hotels in the near-term as travelers attempt to avoid interactions with strangers.” –Travel and Leisure
I try my best to keep my website a positive place, however, it’s simply unbalanced and unjust for experiences like this to be dismissed and ignored for the sake of positivity. Just as I feel strongly when I enjoy a fabulous hotel, or restaurant, and want to share my experience with you, I feel compelled to tell you about this terrible experience in order to help you avoid a similar situation.
My family’s Airbnb encounter last year was hellish: a Hotel California-esque ordeal which no one should ever have to experience. Airbnb not only mistreated us during the time we were there, but afterwards, too. They firmly refused to provide a full refund. This should have been the least they could have offered as a gesture of apology.
I realize that this year’s college (and high school) seniors won’t have a graduation weekend at all, however, I want to make sure that if Airbnb stays in business, that as many people as possible are better informed about their ethics and protocol as a multi-billion dollar company.
What my family experienced during my daughter’s university graduation weekend was nothing short of reprehensible. I hope that telling you our story may help increase the probability that it never happens to anyone else in future.
NB: I am sure that many Airbnb hosts are honest, reliable, communicative, have clean rentals and take pride in being welcoming and helpful. However, given my experience last year, clearly there are some hosts that are the antithesis of these hosts. I feel that I need to highlight how disgracefully, and unfairly Airbnb handled our situation, during, and after our stay.
When we can Safely Travel Again~
Think of how clean you want your future accommodations to be: will you trust a company like Airbnb that has no oversight on how clean or safe their rentals are? Or will you stick with hotels that have certain procedures and protocol with which they must comply?
There is literally NO ACCOUNTABILITY with Airbnb. After reading my experience, I think you’ll be opting for hotels, too.
Thinking of Using Airbnb? Think Again.
How a Horrible Host and Airbnb Ruined a Very SpecialWeekend for my Family
A weekend we’d looked forward to for four years–my daughter’s graduation from Villanova University last May–was nothing like we’d imagined. Instead of the joyous weekend, family reunion and serendipitous celebration of my mother’s 70th birthday, we found ourselves in a filthy, and disgusting situation with no other place to go. It appeared that we had arrived at our accommodation unannounced, despite the fact that I’d booked over two months in advance, and had already paid in full.
Background on the Booking.
Exactly one year prior to the date of needing accommodation in the Villanova area, I attempted to book at minimum, two consecutive nights in the same hotel. This was the first available date to do so, and I managed to secure two rooms, however, when I tried to book the second night the next day, the hotels were already full.
If you’ve had a child graduate from university, I probably need not explain anything to you. However, given that there are over 60 universities and colleges in the Philadephia area, booking hotel rooms during graduation season is a major challenge. I never did manage to secure consecutive rooms in the same hotel, despite consistently checking, and waiting for cancellations.
Enter Airbnb
In early March, someone had mentioned Airbnb to me so I checked the listings and found an entire house for rent not too far from Villanova University. The reviews looked good, one even commenting on the cleanliness of the property.
Edit (June 1, 2020): due to many commenters stating that this must simply be my fault for not checking the reviews, maybe these visuals will help. The 14 reviews includes my 1 star review, so the ratings would have been even higher when I checked them.
These are two of the reviews I read. So for those of you saying I didn’t check the reviews, I guess I should also have known these were fake?
I booked the house on March 10th, and cancelled the two separate hotel reservations. I felt so relieved that we wouldn’t have to change locations, and I also extended our stay for two more days. This way we could have a mini family reunion/vacation. I was excited!
Communication with the host didn’t start out on too well. As per Airbnb’s suggested protocol, I messaged her immediately after I had booked, just to say hello, who was coming to her rental, that I was looking forward to the stay, and asked details about our arrival. I texted again 12 days later, to no avail. She responded another 12 days later, which was over three weeks after my first message. However, she still never answered my question about how to check in. Her response also goes against Airbnb recommendations to always message through Airbnb (which I had done.)
Check In
May 16th arrived and I messaged the host in the morning, but didn’t hear back, so I called later. I finally spoke to her and she said her parents would be at the home to let us in.
Her parents were there, all right. Her mother was hanging drapes (and we wondered why the last minute drape-hanging was happening.)
And her father was laying sod in the backyard. We felt like we were intruding, arriving while they were working in and out of the home. We didn’t say anything, hoping they would leave since most of us had arrived (my daughter had come with us, but she wasn’t staying there.)
Upon our arrival, we immediately noticed how dirty the floors were and smelled a very strong dog odor. All of us noticed; it wasn’t just my mother who is usually the first to see anything that isn’t immaculately clean, or smell something bad.
It was also hard to miss a huge flat screen TV on the couch (see photo above.) I felt a knot in the pit of my stomach, and it kept tightening in response to everything that I was seeing. In the back of my mind, I knew if this wasn’t going to work out, we had no other place to go. I spoke to the host’s mother about the dirty floor and the TV and she said that we could help put the TV back up. I just looked at my family in disbelief: was this really happening?
At this point, another person was in the house. A young teenager appeared, seemingly coming home from school. He didn’t acknowledge us, but walked through the house as if everything was normal (he seemed not to notice strangers were in the house.)
At this point, my whole body was starting to react to this bizarre situation as we started seeing more and more dirt, fur, hair and dust everywhere we looked. The windows looked as though they hadn’t been cleaned in years, and it became clear that we could not stay in these filthy conditions, especially since we had wanted to cook here.
I called the host since I couldn’t communicate with the host’s mother. Several times, she said things that made absolutely no sense. For example, “the food on the floor is from the comforter” and she brought a TV remote in from another room, and called it “the internet.”
I told the host over the phone that the house had not been cleaned, the floors were filthy, there was a TV on the couch, and many other issues. She sounded shocked, and said she was on her way.
At one point, the doorbell rang and my father opened it as we were all standing by the front door (we didn’t even want to sit anywhere.) I have no idea who it was, but he asked for the the host, and then said, “Oh never mind, I’ll come back another time”, and left. If you’ve ever seen The Twilight Zone, this could easily have been an episode.
Before the host arrived, we had done a quick inspection of the main floor and upstairs. Both floors were disgustingly unclean.
Even some sheets and mattresses were stained. There are simply too many photos and videos to upload all of them. Every room smelled, too, it wasn’t just the downstairs.
The Host Arrives
Without making assumptions about why the host wasn’t there to begin with, and why she said and did all the things she did, let me just say, she was not based in reality. She was absolutely taken aback about the fact that I said her house was filthy. She said she’d had a cleaning crew come in and clean it top to bottom! Clearly, the evidence all over the house showed that it couldn’t have been in the last six months or more! It was obvious that we weren’t going to get anywhere when I tried to show her how dirty the floor was, but she refused to look (I’m serious.)
She started to tell me a sob story about how Airbnb hadn’t reimbursed her for damage to her house from some past guests, and how she works hard and didn’t like how I was speaking to her. I told her that she just didn’t like what I was telling her, and tried to speak to her rationally. I attempted to make her understand that these things had nothing to do with me; the point was that her entire house was filthy, and not in any condition to be occupied. She was in denial, and seemed as though she honestly didn’t understand anything that I had said (no, there was no language barrier). It was as though she was not present, mentally.
Calling/Texting Airbnb
There was no other choice but to get Airbnb involved. My mind was blown by this woman who was telling me to my face that her house was clean. In fact, she went so far as to say the “upstairs is immaculate.” You’ve seen a few of the photos from upstairs, but here are a few more.
NB: I commend you if you’ve made it this far without getting physically ill from these photos, but I’m going to warn you, the worst is yet to come. So don’t go any further if you’ve just eaten a meal. I love sharing beautiful pictures, but seeing and uploading all these are making me feel sick all over again. This is so not me, it’s difficult to share these. Just THINK: Airbnb saw all of these photos and deemed that nothing was wrong: now that’s SCARY. In the end, after I fought and fought with them, they still made us pay 50%!
I barely had any battery left on my phone when I contacted Airbnb, so I asked them to call me back on another number, which they failed to do. Luckily, my phone had not yet died, and I started to explain my situation. I went outside the front door for privacy as I didn’t want the host to hear me tell the rep that her house stunk of dog in addition to the filth inside.
As soon as I divulged this to the Airbnb rep, the door flew open and the host reprimanded me, saying loudly, “My house does not smell of dog!” I told her that it was not okay to eavesdrop on my conversation, but clearly things were heading south.
Yes, I had tried to see if any hotel rooms were available, but it was a joke: everything had been booked for a year in advance. Note the time: we arrived at 3 pm.
I cannot write every single thing that transpired because it was incredibly drawn out. In a nutshell:
- I continued my communication with Airbnb over text as the call kept dropping. They said there was nothing else available and I needed to work with the host and allow her to have cleaners come in.
- I said there was no way they could clean the house in a few hours, due to how much needed to be done, but I finally agreed, given there were no other options.
- The host said her cleaner was in the driveway, but she was sending him away because she didn’t want him in the house with me since I wasn’t nice (!!!)
- Her father pulled out of the driveway right after this (her father was “her cleaner.”)
- She had someone else come over, saying he was her attorney. He stayed in the kitchen with her while she mopped one floor for over 30 minutes. At this rate it would take her over a year to clean the house.
- The rep at Airbnb said it was time for his break and left. I honestly couldn’t believe he just left.
- My entire family: mother, father, husband, and son left in my son’s car to go for a tour of Villanova University with my daughter while I stayed behind and tried to deal with Airbnb and the host from hell. I felt even more sick knowing I was missing out on this special time with my family that I would never be able to get back.
No Choice but to Stay
- I finally couldn’t take being in the house with them any longer as they were talking about the situation and how the house was clean, they had done nothing wrong, and talking about me, etc. The agent came back after more than an hour break.
At this point, I asked the host and her “attorney” to leave. All she had cleaned was one floor, which was probably the cleanest floor in the house. Now it was up to me to clean what we had to use, such as the bathrooms, kitchen sink, beds, etc. However, no matter what I cleaned, it wasn’t going to help the dog odor!
No one in my family was happy about the situation, but we all knew we had no other alternative. I felt the worst for my mother who is so meticulously clean, more than any of us. I felt like a failure, although I’d done nothing wrong.
The Backyard
I had to call the host as the backyard had a sprinkler going and was flooding a small area. The host’s father came back and turned it off. However, as my son was sitting out back reading on another day, he returned, just showed up in the backyard without any notification whatsoever.
Who knows how many times he came over as we tried to stay out as long, and as much as we possibly could. I was not happy that he felt he could just wander in whenever he wanted while we were there.
DiscoveringThe Degree of Filth in the House Using Airbnb
I am not exaggerating when I say the house was FILTHY. Just look. Can you imagine being told this is “immaculate?”
Cleaning the toilet literally made me gag. The only reason I did it was because I had to for my family. My mother would never have been able to manage the feat, and I was the only one left at the house at this point. I truly wanted to run away from this disgusting hell-hole and the entire situation, but where could we go with every hotel booked for miles around?
Absolutely nowhere. My daughter’s graduation ceremonies were being held the next two days and my husband and parents’ flights weren’t until Monday (and this was Thursday!) We were stuck here.
I would have considered sleeping in a car over this house, but we didn’t rent a car and my son just had a Honda Civic. Then where would we shower and dress? It was an impossibility.
Allow me to Show you the Kitchen
For those of you who don’t know, this is mouse poop. And it happens to be in a frying pan. How does that strike you? Can you believe that all these photos and documentation meant nothing to Airbnb? Let me show you more and we’ll get to that in a bit.
The back of the drawer. No clue what this is, but it shouldn’t be here. Everything was reprehensible.
See the photo below? That’s the inside of the freezer door. See the dog fur/hair? Yep, that’s in the freezer; not kidding. Remember, I can only show you some of the kitchen, and the house. There was so much more!
Want to see the dishwasher? Probably not, right?
Looked like these had not been used or cleaned in YEARS.
The microwave was revolting. Who am I kidding, everything was revolting.
Downstairs/Basement Using Airbnb
And finally, let’s take a walk downstairs to the basement. This is just a little part of the disgustingly dirty floor.
This wall is disgraceful.
Thank goodness we didn’t do laundry here. I’m adding a video clip below that I took downstairs.
My Mother’s 70th Birthday Celebration that Didn’t Happen
I already had a huge bottle of bubbly and planned on making Mum a nice dinner, buying a cake, and celebrating her 70th birthday with our family since her birthday was a week later. My family lives all over the US, so this was the perfect time to celebrate my mother’s special birthday.
Alas, there was no special dinner being made in that kitchen. No cake was going in that fridge. Proper restaurants were slammed with existing reservations due to the graduations, so we just popped the bubbly at my daughter’s house where everyone didn’t even have a seat, and that was it. The most pathetic 70th “birthday party”, ever.
Airbnb’s Lack of Successful Resolution and Pathetic Customer Service
I called Airbnb upon my return to Los Angeles, but even though they had all the documentation and photos (more than I’ve shared here), they refused to take into account the fact that we COULD NOT LEAVE. They stated that if we complained about the condition of the house, we should have left in order to receive a full refund! It was a vicious circle of me telling them there was no place to go, and Airbnb saying, if it was so bad, you should have left.
After weeks of spending valuable time on the phone and waiting for them to make a decision, they refunded 50% of my payment and offered a $100 towards a future stay! What a joke–after this experience? At minimum, a full refund should have been given, and that still isn’t even close to making up for our ruined weekend! No amount of money can fix lost and ruined time with family.
Also, I discovered that although the listing says the home sleeps 8 (with 4 beds), there are only 3 beds and one is a twin, so it only sleeps 5. It still has not been corrected. How does Airbnb monitor these listings? There is simply no accountability.
Here’s why Airbnb Failed Miserably~
- The fact that Airbnb absolutely refused to look at the facts and realize that there was literally nowhere for my family to go during those four days says a lot about the company. They are focused on making and keeping money, not doing the right thing, and providing good customer service.
- Airbnb didn’t take into account that we left the premises CLEANER than when we arrived. When has that ever happened? They also didn’t take into account our wasted time, and the time we spent cleaning.
- Airbnb also blamed the victim by saying that I should have allowed the host to have someone come to clean WHILE WE WERE THERE. When this woman had over two months to prepare for our arrival, it’s okay to have hours and hours of our time taken away when we should have come to a clean house in the first place? Why is the responsibility never laid on the correct shoulders anymore?
Graduation
Given that this year no one will be able to graduate in the manner shown in the photo above, I’m grateful that my daughter was able to participate in her ceremony. However, our weekend hardly went as planned, all due to some bizarre lack of planning on our host’s part. Had she hired a cleaning crew to do a major (and I mean, MAJOR) cleaning inside her house before our arrival, things would have turned out much differently.
Is my story not enough to dissuade you from using Airbnb?
Then maybe the thousands of other submissions on this site will be.Airbnb Hell
I’d love to hear your thoughts in the comments below. Please share the word about my experience. Have you had a nightmare experience with Airbnb? Would you have done anything differently than me if you would have been in this situation? Let me know.
✧
Two Final Notes
- I never took one photo of my daughter alone in her cap and gown that weekend. I honestly think that the chaos, anxiety, and stress from staying in that horrible filth was the reason I just wasn’t thinking clearly. I’ve been a professional wedding photographer, and I shoot photos all the time. This is just not like me, and it breaks my heart that I didn’t get just one of her alone. This is a shot from the week before with her friends; Denisa is in the center.
2. On Monday, after leaving “Hotel California” (I cannot tell you just how wonderful it felt leaving that place), Denisa and I took my parents into Philadelphia. After having Philly cheesesteaks for lunch at Reading Terminal Market, I witnessed a pedestrian being hit in a crosswalk by an SUV. I got the license plate and gave it to the victim (luckily he wasn’t badly hurt.)
Within 5 minutes, I had my new iPhone (with graduation photos) stolen right out of my hand as we were walking down the street! My 83 year old dad started chasing the thief, and fell on the sidewalk, injuring his chin, chest and later his legs would become completely bruised!
I yelled, “Stop him, he stole my phone!” and someone actually did! I got my phone back, but not after the man who had been hit by the SUV tried to subdue the thief and also fell, injuring his hand quite badly. He had been waiting for the police to arrive. Meanwhile, my daughter took my dad inside a Dunkin’ Donuts as he thought he was going to pass out. I also got two photos of the thief right after getting my phone back! Sounds like a movie, no? This photo says it all: the aftermath.
Let’s just say, it wasn’t the best weekend we’ve ever had. Bottom line: avoid Airbnb, and be super vigilant in Philadelphia.
Stay tuned for a lemon granita recipe next time!
I promise it won’t have any horrible photos.
Okay the cleanliness issue is a problem– one that could be easily corrected by the owner. It sounds like she was willing to do that. Maybe she could have given you a discount for it being dirty, but stuff like this happens. These are regular people renting their real homes out, not hotel/ hospitality professionals.
As for the guy that knocked on the door, I could totally understand this happening if he was a friend of the owners and just dropped by to see them. Maybe he didn’t know guests were staying there. I don’t see why this is such a big deal if he just knocked on the door during the day.
Airbnb is not perfect because these are not professional hospitality workers. But it is a valid option for people who would have issues staying in a hotel because they have a big family or pets, or hotels are booked up.
Sorry Jane, you clearly didn’t read the details of my post and look at the photos. In order for her to clean the house to standards that would be “passable” would have taken a crew of 6 an entire day or more. You focused on the guy knocking on the door? That was just an addition to relay how chaotic it was when we arrived with the parents working on the curtains and yard, and the kid arriving as if he just came “home”. Airbnb is FAR from perfect, in fact they are PATHETIC. A company that refuses to refund for a situation that was this bad is reprehensible. Good luck to you if you ever have a similar situation, whether as a host or guest. You can’t say you weren’t warned.
The experience you describe is pretty similar to one I had in Tel Aviv in December 2019. It was Christmas day, it was 5:30 pm and everything was booked. The place was filthy and the host in denial. Eventually, Airbnb gave me a €250 credit and no refund. It was awful.
Awful probably doesn’t even come close to your actual experience, Claudia. I’m so sorry, no one should have to deal with these situations, and especially for special occasions, like Christmas! I am so upset that they are continuing to grow because they are truly a horrible company.
Wow. We had the same experience with AirBnB in Tel Aviv. The apartment was nice enough, but the bed was smaller than the size of a North American double, not the queen size that was promised. And it was unbelievably uncomfortable. Also, the A/C didn’t work. It would cool for 5 minutes after you turned it on, and then stop. You really don’t want to be in a small apartment in Tel Aviv in the summer without air conditioning. We were lucky to be able to find a great hotel nearby, and we moved to it the next day. Still, we’d paid for 10 nights in the apartment, and weren’t very happy about it. We managed to get some sort of credit from AirBnB but it was a long, protracted negotiation. Never again. Hotels all the way.
Airbnb has changed for the worse, much worse. Their Support is terrible, outsourced abroad. Many of these replies against the guest here are likely fake, hired out, or from other Hosts. If you’re a Guest, you’re SOL since Airbnb just wants to preserve their Hosts and keep growing. They told me “roaches should be expected and tolerable” in an island stay. I had roaches in my kitchen cabinet on the dishware. Hosts can also create new listings for the same property to circumvent negative reviews and start afresh. This is a terrible disservice to future guests and reckless. I used to love Airbnb but will look to alternatives in the future.
so sorry to hear of your experience. I had a similar one in LA last week. Not nearly as bad as yours, but the worst part of it is their “fairness” — not only was i theHere’s my tale
Last week we completed a nearly two-week airbnb stay in Los Angeles. It was not good.
There were ants in the bedroom and bathroom which were discovered in the first hour of arrival.
Our host helpfully offered the upstairs accommodation instead (normally more expensive, it was offered at the same price). We were grateful even as we noted that it had the same bug problem on a smaller scale. The host responded the next day with ant bait traps and spray. We put the ant traps in the affected bathroom and bedroom and this confined the problem to those two rooms.
Our group of 5 moved into two bedrooms and left the one with the bug problem and used one bathroom since the other had the bug problem. All was manageable and although it was disappointing, hey it’s ants and we’re not snowflakes. One can live with inconvenience. However, on the last couple of days the ants moved into our beds.
At 730 pm of the last night of our stay we texted the host: we had to decamp to the living room since there were ants in our bed.
Incredibly enough there was no response. A few hours later, after 10 pm, I texted the host again. No response. Nor has there been any response, gesture, refund or apology since then,
I contacted Airbnb. I provided photos of the ants and a screenshot of my day-one messages with host about the ants. The process with airbnb had an investigative tone (somewhat tolerable and understandable) until the representative said that in order to really move the needle I needed to have taken photos the very first moment I communicated with the host on hour one of day one.
This seemed an excessive of burden of proof to require when nothing adversarial had even taken place. He also seemed to convey from the host that we attracted the ants in the first place or later. This felt punitive and demoralizing It felt like a lot was required to back up a reasonable claim: refund the money for the last night because we had to leave the bedroom — and maybe a small gesture in addition. We would have been ok with that.
Instead, what we got was a torturous, rigid and righteous reading of the rules as though it were the magna carta or the constitution -of airbnb – The offer of $126 (half of one night’s stay) was completely lacking in imagination and compassionate identification with the renter. It were as though I had to prove (even after photos were produced and messages sent) that we hadn’t fabricated a claim — to get what? One full night credit?
The prospect of writing a review is not only unappealing but unfair to the host and disconnected from reality — the “host” has a medium sized business staging properties and managing them for airbnb renters in southern California. What good is a single review against a conglomerate of airbnb and its multi-property host? I feel like David against Goliath. i simply want the respect accorded to someone who came to airbnb in good faith with the presumption of a lodging where every night of your stay you can sleep in your bed.
Instead, I encountered a problem and then a problem within a problem – an Orwelian Airbnb universe.
victim of a bug issue — I absiolutely felt blamed. Their goodwill offer was an insult and I do not ever plan to use their horrible comany again.
Since we’ve been fighting ants all summer (here in LA) I can empathize with you. It’s not the end of the world, however, they really make their presence known and I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve wasting trying to get them to stop coming in.
Again, Airbnb has treated you exactly as we were treated. They blame the victim, which is absolutely ridiculous. I agree, the offer of half a night’s stay is insulting and I yes, boycotting their horrible company is the best plan of attack. Hopefully others will get the memo sooner than later, too. Thanks for sharing. CC
We recently had a bad experience with an AirBnB that included biting insect mites. AirBnB is no longer publishing their customer service phone number on their site; you have to enter a written complaint in their system and wait. We have been waiting over a week.
AirBnBs expose the guest to many potential ways of being a victim; they require payment up front and can have very strict cancellation rules, almost guaranteeing you will lose your money if anything goes wrong and the host doesn’t want to address it. In some cities, most AirBnBs are run illegally, and AirBnB seems to collaborate in that business model, which can remove thousands of rental property units from the local market, drive rent prices up, and populate residential neighborhoods with tourists.
I also have found reviews are sometimes very inaccurate. I’d like to know more about how this happens…Do people feel obligated to leave a good review if they leave dirty dishes in the sink? Do people sometimes get paid under the table to leave a good review? In my experience, they used to have customer service representatives that could help work through issues, but they don’t seem to anymore. We have had some good experiences over the years, but we have made the decision to look for other options when we can. Thanks for sharing this to warn others of the potential for these kinds of problems.
Hi Cynthia, I’m so sorry to hear you were also not treated well by AirBnb. I completely agree, there are many other options and I won’t give them one more penny.
Thanks to a commenter here on my site, I discovered how people can leave fake reviews (which I am absolutely sure was the case when I RE-read the reviews on our rental property). It was clear to me that there was no way they were talking about the same house, or they were fake because the house hadn’t been cleaned in months, yet they were saying how clean it was! Here’s how they do it: the owner has a friend or relative book their house. They pay and then cancel on the first day of the rental, for some “legitimate” reason. They get their money back from Airbnb, but because they “checked in” they have the ability to leave a review!!! So sly and underhanded, but they clearly know how to work the system. We were duped.
So all the people saying to me, “you should have read the reviews,” means nothing. I DID read the FAKE reviews!! :( Still so angry.
Christina, this is terrible! I can’t see all the photos because they don’t seem to load but I’ve seen enough. I have had a fantastic experience in an airbnb in Torino and other places in Italy were quite good compared to cramped European hotels. However in January we booked an airbnb in Melbourne to visit our daughter and had a bad experience. It was clean but when we arrived the host messaged me to say the landlord needed access to the apartment which I thought was strange. She said we didn’t need to be there but I just didn’t feel right so we made sure we were there. When the time arrived, there was a knock on the door and a man and woman came in followed by 10 other people which we hadn’t seen down the hallway. This wasn’t the landlord, this was a house inspection for a potential sale. All these strangers when in and out of the rooms with all our belongings out for all to see. They were taking video and photos. We were horrified at the invasion of privacy. The host claimed she never knew. In our case, airbnb fully refunded us after our complaint but I will never book with airbnb again. I agree with you, there is no accountability with airbnb.
İ had a terrible experience in Vietnam with a disgusting, filthy AirBNB. We only spent one night there and were lucky that other accomodations were available (more expensive because of booking last minute but at least i could sleep). I’m a superhost myself and take great care of my home, sometimes things happen and i always work to resolve things for my guests because i really care about their experience. But wow, what happened to me was shocking. İ felt also blamed. The owner said i was lying, said i broke his bed in order to take pictures of the filth, etc. İn the end, Airbnb removed my factual review of this filthy property and terrible situation with an owner (who wasn’t even present in the city for an extended period to see the property for himself). He of course left me a bad review – my first and only + I’ve been traveling the world for over 3 years full time! His poor review of me stayed on my profile even though mine was removed because i mentioned that Airbnb had asked me to try to resolve with him before leaving.. they said that violated their policy. İ ended up getting a full refund but it sure left me with so many bad feelings. I’m sorry to hear your story and how this situation negatively affected 2 very important events in your life. Thanks for sharing.
So sorry you had a bad experience, too. It’s so unfair that they removed your review and left the host’s in, especially since it was your first one!! The fact that Airbnb has no oversight when they are clearly not doing “the right thing” in so many cases is why I wrote my post. Hope you don’t have any problems with them in future, Jessica.
My sister had an experience that was even worse than your experience if you can believe that. So bad that after emails with coaching from me (I am in the legal end of real estate) AirBNB refunded her money and removed the property from listing. She ended up seriously ill from staying in that dump.
So sorry to hear that, Danielle. Yes, I could imagine throwing in some bed bugs, cockroaches and mold would make it even worse; but at what point do they draw the line and say, “This is not okay.” I believe our stay crossed that line, but they didn’t care. Glad your sister got her $ back, but it shouldn’t have been a battle and there’s nothing that will make her stay better after the fact. Airbnb is a horrid company when it comes to customer service.
I cannot imagine anything worse than what you experienced — even more so because you weren’t there for just a holiday. It was a once in a life special occasion of your daughter’s graduation as well as your mother’s birthday celebration. It must have been maddening dealing with the host and her parents, and Airbnb staff who clearly couldn’t care less. Thank you for this post (which I stumbled across while looking for a panna cotta recipe). My husband and I have used Airbnb for a one night stay and it was exactly as depicted online. It was for the same reason as you– there was nothing else available. I’ve heard too many horror stories to willingly use Airbnb and it is sickening they are still not being held accountable for bad hosts/properties and not holding hosts accountable. All they would have to do is suspend a host of a filthy property and they would soon find that hosts know there are consequences to delivering on what they present online. I’m so sorry this happened to you and your family. Thank you for sharing.
Thank you so much, Kathleen. I wholeheartedly agree with your suggestion. Hold those hosts accountable for their actions and others wouldn’t even think about being rotten because they would end up losing money. It’s simple, but Airbnb clearly does NOT care.
Hope you enjoy the panna cotta and stay for more recipes (I promise the Airbnb post is not my normal thing!)
My daughter LOVED your Panna cotta & raspberry sauce. I had made it a lot when we lived in the UK but when we moved to US, life got a lot busier so I had not made it since she was 6 yrs old. It was perfect dessert for wisdom teeth removal recovery period (a surgery my English husband thinks is another unnecessary American dental thing.). I feel bad for good AirBNB hosts but I am not a fan.
Oh that is a long time if she’s had her wisdom teeth removed! Glad your daughter was able to enjoy the panna cotta again! I have to say, for dental things, I think we need a happy medium between the US and UK! There’s something to be said for your husband’s opinion, but who truly knows best? Unfortunately, the good Airbnb hosts are at risk of being taken advantage of by bad guests and the company won’t back them up, either. It’s just not a good company :(