We arrived at a rental for an entire house ($1200 US for three nights) with high expectations as it was advertised with air conditioning in the amenities. The host (Adam) was not there but left his cell phone number. On arrival, we found a single wall air conditioning unit in the first floor hall and turned it on. When we went to the second and third floors looking for the other units we were surprised; there were none and the temperature was 85F outside with 80% humidity. The host answered his phone and said to “close all the windows and leave the air conditioning on high.” The upstairs temperature continued to rise making it impossible to sleep or even breathe. We contacted the host the following morning and he said that he’d “see about renting a portable air conditioning unit.” We told him we’d be out for the day and he had our cell phone number.
We were surprised on our late afternoon return that there was no new air conditioning unit. There was an email on our 4:10 PM return that said he tried to find one but there was none. He was on a “waiting list” and if that wasn’t an acceptable solution we’d have to vacate by 4:00 PM, which had already past. We called him again and he became verbally abusive telling us that “he knew that New Yorkers would be trouble.” Luckily a friend from the town was with us and we found a local electronics store (thanks to Harvey Norman Inc) which had units in stock, but were closing at 4:30 PM. We rushed over, picked up the unit, and after six hours the third floor bedroom was cool enough to use.
When we told the host we spent 300 AUD he said we couldn’t use the unit because his electricity bill would skyrocket. We continued to use it anyway. Our friend kept the air conditioner when we departed two days later for the US. The host changed his Airbnb posting after we left so that it no longer said that the place had air conditioning in the amenities but then gave us a bad review; we never even reviewed him but did delete our Airbnb account. Never again. Airbnb gave us $175 US back and a credit for $100 since the host would not return his emails.