Staying in this Airbnb was like a Mental Institution

At first glance, this Airbnb seemed really nice and friendly. Then we went to stay at it, actually looked at the house, and realized it’s a mental institution. To book the room my boyfriend had to give references; while the host called them, she blocked my boyfriend from seeing her page and gave him a full refund for the stay.

She called his boss and everything checked out… maybe because we’re normal people. So why did she do this? Because he had a review of five stars, but said we were a little loud the first night, so she said that his review wasn’t stellar. First off, this lady was completely rude and unwelcoming to my boyfriend and me when we first got there. She told my boyfriend that we could come to the house earlier than the check in so we could park our car there. We had a concert to go to; my boyfriend paid for us to go to Tumble Down festival that weekend.

Anyhow, we parked our car, checked out the backyard super quick and then boom, this lady appeared… when she told my boyfriend she’d be working all day. Anyways, she left us real fast saying she had a children’s play to go to. He and I went to walk around Nurlington to wait for our friends who were showing up before we entered the festival. We went and bought these special limited edition #plumpciders that Twiddle created with another brewery, got something to eat, and went back to the house to drop the ciders off in my car so we didn’t have to walk around with them (plus the festival wouldn’t let us in with those).

This is where we met the host again… did she just drive around the block and wait for us to leave to come back to the house? Anyways, super unwelcoming again. We bought her cupcakes from a bakery in Massachusetts, she did not take them from me so I awkwardly put them on a table. She then asked us if we knew she lived there full time… we didn’t because it wasn’t in the ad that she was so crazy about us reading (my boyfriend and I both read it multiple times).

She then ridiculed us because we had asked her two questions: whether she had a fridge (wasn’t in the pictures and also wasn’t listed in the ad at the time under appliances when everything else was) and whether she had AC (wasn’t listed in the ad and she didn’t after all). After this terribly uncomfortable conversation we left and went to the festival. Our friends were there (who did walk into the house and scared the host, although we did say to call us when we got there; it was a little miscommunication).

The festival was no entry so we had to fight to get our tickets back, which we did because the box office people were very nice. We left the festival and went to the brewery right across the street to read a message from the host saying this might not be the right fit for her (meaning to stay at her house). Now, fearful we might not have a place to stay we messaged back apologizing for the miscommunications. We grabbed our friends and met up with her at the house for check in at 7:30. I knocked on the door; this scared her and she said she needed three more minutes.

Thirty minutes later she came out with wine and glasses for us to “hang out” and give us a tour of the house… when she knew we had a concert to go to. This all took about an hour if not more, extremely rude. Now the house was odd but cute at first. It was nothing like the pictures because she rearranged everything to block off certain rooms and half of a room. Whatever, we could deal with that.

That night we didn’t get to go to the concert due to rain by the time we got down there (money wasted), so we went back to the house, cracked open a beer and begin to hang out. I picked up a magnet from her fridge. The first one I touched said “paranoid”. Now, I know I may have overreacted at first, but this magnet came after I was looking at her fridge reading her lists that look like an anxiety attack; all to our own I suppose, but it freaked me out.

I went into the cabinet to grab a glass and there were also notes. Which I have pictures of, they are crazy: “fascination w/ gone (my fam) LYING…” (this one was super weird because she showed us a picture of her dead grandmother that she painted on her wall. In the picture it said something like ‘granny looking GOOD’), “unscrambled egg, sock”, “path our of adversity, after patio”, “DOUBT!!!!!”, “Not allowed to be….”, and more. However, those are the only pictures I have to show.

Then we found multiple books that were all pretty dark: “Masters of Deception”; “Something Wicked This Way Comes”, just two of the many to paint a nice picture. Now we move to the paintings. I mentioned the dead grandma one; let’s go to the upstairs one. On the ceiling wall was a beautiful one of a cat and a woman. On the one across from the bed we saw the word ‘worry” inside it. The painting was set up with 2-3 weird red gooey looking dripping blotches (maybe to resemble blood). The rest of the walls were painted white, but painted white to cover up some other paintings.

Let’s move to the best painting of them all, the downstairs living room painting. This one should be framed in the welcome lobby of that hotel from “American Horror Story – Hotel”. It would fit very well there. This painting looked very normal, but when you’re up at 12:30 AM, your friends have gone to sleep, and you’re a little buzzed from the beer you had, you begin to just stare at things, and I looked at this one. What words did I find? “Bleed out”, “boogeyman”, “dare”, “how”, “are”, “the”. They were strategically placed. It makes one think what sentences are in this painting.

Anyway, I was not feeling comfortable at all. How could anyone after the meeting with her, all these discoveries, and now an eerie feeling of just dark and extreme sadness in this hellhole? My stomach was killing me and my boyfriend’s chest was hurting. After trying to fall asleep, my body wouldn’t let me. Research how your body reacts in dangerous or uncomfortable places; it’s an instinctive reaction.

My boyfriend and I drove to the nearest Walmart parking where we found comfort; my stomach stopped hurting, as did his chest. We still could not sleep though. We waited until 4:00 AM came and drove to the Courtyard Marriott. The man working that night heard our story, saw how disheveled we looked, felt bad and booked us the last room they had because there was a cancellation.

He tried to give us the discounts he could, including the AAA one. He said check in would be at 1:00 PM. I couldn’t make it until then with no sleep and I couldn’t sleep in that damn house, so he said to call at 7:00 AM, ask for a certain lady and tell them that a room was blocked off for us by him. We drove back to the house and waited in the car until the sun rose, went inside and then at 7:00 AM we called and found that we were able to check in at 10:00 AM.

Our friends woke up at 7:30 AM and we went about our day… with no sleep. Well, our friends fell asleep upstairs without knowing about our adventure, until we showed them everything. My boyfriend and I went to the hotel room that day, slept for an hour or so, showered, met up with our friends and went to lunch. We told them they could stay with us that night; we had a two bedroom that was comfier and felt a lot safer.

That night we went to the concert, and went back to the house. Have you ever walked in somewhere and your heart started beating fast? Maybe I was a little anxious; I’m not a doctor so I don’t know what it was. We grabbed all of our things and went to the hotel room. We left that morning. You think that would be the end of the story, right?

The host texted my boyfriend asking if we had made the beds because they were so nicely made. He didn’t answer because he wanted no further contact about it. She continually texted him over and over asking about these beds… I just wanted her to wash the sheets and leave us alone.

The weekend to stay there cost us about 450ish dollars plus the $220 to stay at the hotel. Rightly so, my boyfriend wanted a refund for the second day because we didn’t stay at the house because if we wanted to have an experience like the movie 13 Ghosts we probably would have camped at Dudley Town… I guess we weren’t feeling it that weekend.

Airbnb refused our refund because we didn’t have proof that we didn’t stay. I called the hotel and the front desk lady emailed the receipt to me that we did stay there; however, my boyfriend didn’t want to peruse this anymore. You’d understand if you tried calling Airbnb; they’re awful with customer service. Check out Airbnb Hell if you’d like. They have plenty of stories on that website.

Anyhow, this begs the question, “why are you posting this then?” This lunatic decided to wait until the last day you can make a review to give us a horrible review on Airbnb, which other employees can see and help to make their decisions as to if we could stay at their house. This was very dirty on the host’s part. My boyfriend and I had decided we wouldn’t blow her spot up on the Internet, then this happened and well… we’re angry.

There you have it. I know I did a horrible job painting this picture of how uncomfortable this house was, and maybe some of you think that we were being overdramatic. Airbnb likes to use the word “subjective”. For those who know me, I’m not an overdramatic person nor am I a scaredy cat; but that house turned me into the biggest little bitch ever and I don’t think a refund for the night we did not stay there is a bad thing to ask for. Here is the link to the house.