Airbnb Reviews are to Serve the Business

Posted on October 16, 2019

When you look at a host’s review, you might not see the whole story. Our host wrote that people shouldn’t give her one-star reviews if they didn’t read her booking and know what to expect. Fair enough, right?

The host had hundreds of review, but if you scroll down, you can’t find any guests that did not recommend staying there. I wish I knew why someone would give this host a one-star review, and I figured out the hard way.

When I had to do an emergency change to the reservation, the host declined my request to change any dates. I ended up paying more than double the original price because it was a special weekend and $40 in Airbnb fees for two nights. Why do the booking and service fees cost so much for just two days?

The room was okay but the floor was like concrete: no rugs, tiles, or carpeting. There were spiders in the room and the bathroom, and the yard looked unkempt: dirt yard, wooden boards. You could see how the neighbor’s yard at least looked neat and had plants. It was a basic home and room that cost the same as staying in a hotel for one night.

When you have this happen, don’t bother calling Airbnb. After staying there, Airbnb predicted that my review might be too honest for them and actually blocked me from writing reviews. It’s a business, they said, and there’s nothing you can do about it. You can’t appeal to them. They don’t even tell you that you can’t write reviews.

They force you to only have two choices: lose your money and don’t stay there, or have no choice but to stay there because after you’ve reserved on a strict reservation, there’s no cancelling. You end up losing your money anyway and paying 15% in fees.

Next time, book a hostel or a hotel where they don’t charge a high booking fee and let you change your reservation. Hostel and hotel reviews on Yelp aren’t monitored by the hostel and hotel themselves. You get more honest feedback that way. When reviews are monitored by the business and chosen by the business, you’ll know the reviews are to serve the business.

Creepy Host Harassing Airbnb Guests

Posted on October 16, 2019

Attention everyone who finds this apartment attractive. We’ve just had a very creepy and shocking experience with the host of this place. As we (four adults) arrived to the apartment, we discovered that one of the two double beds did not have a mattress. Instead, there was a very thin pad covering a wooden surface of the bed’s carcass. We called the owner to find out if something could be done. He allowed us to combine some mattresses that were on two single beds.

The next day we decided to move from the place anyway (in addition, we realized that this apartment, crowded with old furniture and hundreds of objects, had a very bad smell). However we didn’t bother the owner with the smell issue; our major problem was the bedding that caused a lot of inconvenience to us. The host was pretty frustrated, but he gave us a refund as soon as we left. We left at about 9:15 AM and moved to a hotel.

The nightmare begins now. That evening, as we walked through some touristy places, we received a message from the host. He accused us of the crime of flipping over his whole apartment, stealing some jewelry from the drawers, breaking the bed, etc. As we read this, being speechless, he continued to add things that never happened and had never been done by us.

Imagine: four adults (I am an architect, my sister is a college teacher… we have grown-up kids) now have to deal with such a horrible scam. We then started to read carefully all the reviews on this apartment and we discovered something very similar and horrifying from a woman and little kid who rented this place a while ago (please find this one-star review and read).

We contacted Airbnb right away and told the assistant about the situation. In the meanwhile we contacted the host and suggested we come with the police and have them evaluate our fingerprints. He replied, “In Italy, there is no such thing.”

The next day, this manipulative person wrote us another message and asked, “Why didn’t you come with the police?” I probably should stop describing all the nonsense and wait for the update from Airbnb.

The owner demanded 450 Euros in compensation from us at first. After a few days he increased the amount to 661 Euros, enough for Airbnb to move the case to a different team. In addition, as we usually take pictures of every room in the apartment at the moment we leave, we did the same with this place. We provided Airbnb with everything we had to prove our decency. This host has no proof. He never called the police, and he continues to threaten my family.

Safety of Guests is not a Concern for Airbnb

Posted on October 15, 2019

We stayed at an Airbnb-hosted accommodation near Slough in Beaconsfield previously and were planning to visit again. It’s a clean budgeted accommodation, with CCTV only installed inside the premises. We had an incident on the host’s driveway, which was distressing as we felt quite unsafe.

The host herself confessed a spate of burglaries in the neighbourhood. When we asked the host about a CCTV on her premises, she immediately said it was not on the outside as if she knew something has happened. Moreover, we were surprised that the host, as well as the Airbnb staff, were unempathetic and unhelpful. No consideration was given to guests’ safety.

We have cancelled all our future bookings at this place. We have used Airbnb in the past for may years. This is the first time we have had an unfortunate incident, and Airbnb customer support was very unhelpful.

We asked the Airbnb staff about the host not mentioning the CCTV in her listing, but the customer support insisted that the host did. When I asked Airbnb staff to show evidence of this, no response was received. Also, I requested to check when the host last updated her listing, and there was again no response from the Airbnb team. The Airbnb team also refused to refund the booking amount in full despite cancelling the booking two weeks in advance.

We have also used many American products and services in the past, and their services have been very customer-oriented. Special circumstances are always given an extra bit of attention. We have used Airbnb for many years and recommended it to others.

However, after this incident, we felt that the safety of the guest was not a priority for Airbnb. For that reason will try to avoid using Airbnb whenever possible and would not recommend it to others. We also plan to write about this incident and the way the untrained Airbnb managers have handled the situation on various blogs and websites and discourage people from using it.

San Juan del Sur, Nicaraguan Hell Vacation

Posted on October 14, 2019

I stumbled down the hot street looking for rooms when suddenly a gate opened on to a large property and I peeped in. I pushed past the garden fixture, a young teenage fella hired for general property duties, towards a frazzled woman of about 60, wiping sweat off her forehead and giving the fixture a look for letting me in.

“What can I do for you?’ She was a Brit.

‘I’m looking for a room,’ I said, dropping my suitcase. She looked me up and down, asked me a few pointed questions, then walked me back to a room in a house two houses back from the first, each with a pool.

Thus was the beginning of the worst holiday I’ve ever had. My first Airbnb and my last. I surveyed the room: art deco, clean. We agreed on $45/night, but I was disappointed to learn that I would be sharing the house with her disgruntled husband, an inveterate television watcher, late night snacker, ball scratcher.

Any question I asked him he directed back to his wife. I asked for a key to my room, but there was none. She said, ‘Well, just hide the things that are important to you.’

Easier said than done when you have a suspect roommate, whom I was soon to meet. I dove into my bathing suit and went out to the pool, where I was introduced to a disheveled woman in her seventies from Chicago with a humped back, and a distended stomach the likes of which I had never seen. But for her long, tangled gray hair, you might have thought she was pregnant due to the protrusion of her stomach, accentuated by stick-like legs that reached, crablike, to suck and the ground towards her. She ground her teeth and smoked beside the pool.

I bumped into her in the hall the next morning and my good morning wasn’t exuberant enough because from that moment on she ignored me. I didn’t exist. It was weird. When I sat outside, she’d pull her chair around to make sure her back was to me. In the kitchen, she turned her back, when she walked out the door, she walked right by me. When her son visited with friends, she did the same. She was unbelievably childish and it became a real pain in the arse for everybody.

The house was super noisy; you heard everything and you had little privacy. Every time a door shut, it slammed and rattled through the house. Every door also squeaked. I asked my host why they didn’t oil the hinges and she said she wanted it that way so she knew what was going on. I wound up slamming my door harder, just to ease her mind.

‘Oh I feel like I’m in between the two of you, now I feel awful. I don’t want to be in this position,’ said the host one morning. ‘I just feel awful.’ She then patted my arm and said ‘be the bigger person.’

Later, she and I were sitting at the kitchen table having coffee (although it was a bed and breakfast I had yet to get any breakfast) discussing alternative medicines. She spoke of her chronically upset stomach (viciously throwing up for hours my first night there), her constipation, along with her dazzling display of varicose veins.

‘Urology,’ she said. A blank look formed in my eyes. ‘You know what that is don’t you?’

‘Uh, yeah?’

She explained urology. ‘It’s when you drink your own urine.’

‘Oh,’ I said. Okay, look normal now, I thought, thinking back to the orange juice in the fridge.

‘It’s very good for your health because you’re drinking your own bodily fluids.There’s nothing wrong with it.’

Did I say there was? Okay, time for a swim.

She couldn’t take the situation with the other guest anymore and feeling forced to choose, stopped talking to me; the guest was a snowbird, after all. There was silence from the host as she dusted while I made coffee. No “How’s your room? Do you need a towel? Are you having a good time?”

It was awkward and I rued having paid her for the week because there was no way I was getting a refund. Mostly, I resented them when they sat around smoking dope and didn’t even offer me a toke.

The host was obsessed with money, or lack thereof. Her husband opened up to me about how much money they owed. I was somewhat relieved when she stopped talking to me because she pissed and moaned about money constantly: the downturn in tourism, their loans, her daughter’s expensive school in France, the houses. She was so self-absorbed.

The people who stayed at the fourth house on the property were unhappy. They were up on a bluff and they had no air conditioning for the perpetual burning sun, and no screens for the wind that brought dust, delivering massive gobs of brown sand to every surface inside. The floors were sandy.

The guest had to go to the doctor because of a bronchial infection. She was coughing up great gobs of yellow… let’s not get too descriptive. She couldn’t get any rest, either, because there were chickens right under her window that woke her up every morning at five. Not to mention the dogs that barked next door. When she asked the host about getting the house cleaned, she said:

‘Yeah, if you want to share the expense of that.’

‘How much would that be?’

‘Eight dollars.’

Yes, in spite of her avowed devotion to spirituality, she was cheap. I couldn’t wait to leave. It’s hard staying in a place as a guest where the hostess is pretending you’re just not there.

Breezehome in Overveen Haarlem Netherlands near Amsterdam

Posted on October 12, 2019

I have been visiting the Netherlands since the 1990s and have come to understand the mentality of the people quite well now. It is quite normal for some Dutch people to misrepresent something in the interests of business.

This Airbnb rental is located in Overveen close to Haarlem or Harlem, which is about 17 Km from Amsterdam in The Netherlands, or Holland or Nederland Europe for Dutch speakers. In the near future, Formula 1 racing events will be held at Zandvort or Zandvoort, which is close by. This operator told me about all the money that can be made by local people renting out rooms locally.

I don’t want to seem harsh to the host because he isn’t a bad guy and is quite pleasant and interesting to be around. However, I do have some objections to his listing as it stands on Airbnb right now (October 2019). Unfortunately, this rental is listed in a way that is not representative of the condition it is really in now.

The main complaint I have is of misrepresentation and omission. Haarlem is a nice alternative to Amsterdam, an authentic medieval/Golden Era town which is well worth a visit, with easy and quick railway connections with Amsterdam and the airport. The location of the apartment is 15-20 minutes from the town center or the railway station on foot.

The room that you will be renting is not a separate room, but is on a blind landing at the very top of the apartment, with no door. The room is a good size but has no window and no form of external ventilation. There were two fans but the room was still very stuffy even though the fans were on and the summer was over by then.

Sleeping in this room for me was similar to sleeping in an underground bunker. With all the lights off, it was absolutely pitch dark and too warm. The in-house ventilation fan in the electrical cupboard in the room made a continuous noise. I resorted to sleeping on the floor in the living room. The room made me feel very claustrophobic. It was not really possible to hang-out in your bedroom because it was not a comfortable experience in that respect. The lighting was provided from one energy-saving bulb in the ceiling.

There were other problems. The living room was cluttered and untidy and in need of a cleaning, as was the whole apartment. The sofa covers absolutely stank. When I removed the covers from the duvet and pillows to wash them at the end of my stay, I saw they were not very clean and in need of dry cleaning. The mattress had a few old stains on it. The kitchen area was not all that clean and there was always a huge pile of washed utensils in the drying area by the sink.

There was a tiny part of the fridge for guests. When I offered the host some coffee I was planning to brew he said that he did not drink coffee, which meant that there was nothing to brew it in available. I was not really invited to use the kitchen so I did not use it.

The open hats and coats area by the front door was a cluttered jumble of shoes, very untidy and certain to create a poor impression with many visitors. There were two very steep flights of stairs from the living room to the guest room. Not a problem for me, but should be mentioned in the listing. The bathroom and toilet need a cleaning. The cover to the toilet cistern is missing and the toilet bowl below the water is black and denotes a lack of care over a long period of time.

The décor in the apartment is rather tired and there is a huge pile of water-soaked cigarette butts in a dish out on the terrace and more on the floor. This is the best part of the apartment, but again it was neglected.

I did ask the host if he could print out my return bus ticket, offering him a couple of Euros for his trouble. He said it was okay and he would do it. I left an old USB flash drive on his coffee table where it remained for several days and then I noticed it was gone. Because time became short I got it printed at a local printers.

I asked him if had picked up the stick and he said that he hadn’t seen it. In order to be diplomatic I shrugged off the incident and make no conclusion about it. The stick was worth nothing, only had the bus ticket on it, but it did disappear from one day to the next and I had to accept a denial from the host. I did also check the living room very thoroughly when he was out, but it did not turn up. He did not further enquire as to whether I had got the ticket printed.

This is one of those pointless and quite surreal incidents when using Airbnb when you have to make an instant decision to insist on something or just laugh it off. If he had said that he lost the stick rather than presenting me with an adolescent explanation then everything would have been fine.

I paid just over £200 Sterling for six nights here (approximately US$246). It is not the worst Airbnb rental or the worst host, even if he could be described as bad, I have encountered by a long way and I am used to accepting differences and inconveniences as part of the interest in staying in different places. I think that this rental is probably worth half what I paid.

I have given up complaining or making suggestions to hosts or Airbnb. I do not like leaving bad reviews on Airbnb because I do not wish to get into an on-line dispute and Airbnb sanitises reviews anyway. Airbnb expected me to provide pictures of this let, which strikes me as a strange and anti-social activity in itself.

The presumption that the paying customer is somehow a bit of a fool and that they are there to be milked by the Dutch is still alive and well in the minds of a lot of them. If you are pleasant, personable and respectful then it is possible that you will be seen as something of an idiot.

Airbnb is not going to ask the host to list his property more accurately, because I did not take any pictures during my stay. My comments are corroborated by the feedback given by other guests. I did not read all of the feedback when I booked in the Spring of 2019 and so missed the crucial detail about the lack of a window.

Worst Airbnb Experience Ever, no Refund

Posted on October 11, 2019

I paid $1471 for a two-week stay but had to leave after having vicious dogs running at myself and my dogs. I called Airbnb and told them I was going to have to find another place because our safety was a factor. I spent four hours with three different people on the phone with Airbnb and was assured my cancellation would be done by then. I paid another $1800 out of pocket to move an hour away to a private rental and gave Airbnb time to do my cancellation and let me know what was going on. I called every day trying to find out what was going on. This morning I got a refund for $289 out of $1471. I’m not going to sit and let this happen. This has been a horrible experience and completely wrecked my vacation. They are about to get sued.

Amsperience Treeland Wormerveer Listing in Amsterdam

Posted on October 9, 2019

The words ‘sweet’ and ‘cosy’ and ‘paradise’ should be banned from Airbnb. It is possible to find cheap accommodation on Airbnb which is actually of a good standard, not too spartan and actually very pleasant to stay in.

The correct choice of budget accommodation on Airbnb is not helped by the fact that the company sifts out the worst reviews and a reading of the reviews of a property like this actually looks fairly positive. This landlord has also re-listed his property many times to eliminate bad reviews.

The couple running this venue are in their 20s and have had the immense good fortune to have been handed what was a very nice house with a lot of character with a big garden. Sadly the way in which they run the venue is very disappointing and disconcerting to experience.

I stayed with them at their old venue in 2016, which was rustic but not unpleasant, and at this venue in 2017. You will enter the premises via a side gate, next to which the domestic bins are, plus a big pile of domestic rubbish under a plastic cover. The garden is visibly neglected, quite over-grown, which creates a secluded but rather depressing impression.

The house is wooden, with a very characteristic hallway, but which has seen a lot of human traffic: the floor and doors are scuffed and grubby, there are cobwebs, blown light bulbs, and a wooden staircase which also needs cleaning. There is an odd smell probably due to the result of lack of proper cleaning. The entire downstairs is private to the operator.

A glimpse through the dirty windows reveals a catastrophic hoarder kitchen and a very untidy living space on the ground floor. The downstairs common bathroom and toilet is actually quite good.

The owner says that he does not allow access to the kitchen because it ‘f*cks up my energy.’ The kitchen is not even usable for any conventional purpose and would require many days of cleaning to restore.

There are two upstairs bedrooms. They are both a good size. The bigger one is an en suite with a nice shower, but the shower has been out of action for a few months because of a leak. The sliding door to this room could be locked with a padlock, but there is no padlock. The other room has no door but a curtain. The beds, although pallet beds, are comfortable. There is also a rustic wooden building in the garden which is a cluttered, dirty, untidy workshop, with filthy windows which is sometimes available for rent.

I was asked my views on the property by the owner and I told him that he could probably double his income by providing a mini-bar fridge, fridge space for the guests, basic tea and coffee making facilities, real beds, an inclusive simple breakfast (and not the vegan breakfast he has sometimes insisted on) and by cleaning the windows. The venue does have a good washing machine and dryer which I suggested that the owner charge guests for using.

The central heating is on constantly for some unknown reason, so it is also possible to dry clothes on the radiator in the bedroom which you can turn on and off. I asked the owner about pegs for drying on the washing line but he could not be bothered to look for them.

There is wifi, but it goes off all the time when the owner’s phone goes out of range of the router. He will not change this so that guests can go online with greater convenience and is often too under the influence of drugs to connect it when asked, particularly in the evenings. I constantly had to ask him to reconnect it and towards the end of my five-day stay he could not be bothered to do it. He told me to get KPN for internet access which cost me 15 Euros and did not work at all well.

He has ideas of starting a second or third operation, when the one he has got is operating at such a poor level. He even thought that I would be interested in running an Airbnb operation with him in the future. In 2017, I was almost offered the option of running the current Airbnb operation so that the owner and his girlfriend could go on holiday, with no mention of any kind of payment or profit-share for this work.

The owner/operator is a young man approaching 30, whom I do have previous experience with. He is not at all unpleasant or dishonest but sadly he is addicted to processing and smoking dab cannabis every day. This is the principal reason why the property is run at such a low level. The Airbnb operation exists like this so that he can take drugs every day and hang around in the house.

Our previous acquaintance going back to 2016 and 2017 probably explains why he did not bother to vacuum my room before I arrived. His girlfriend was away, so he would hang out in my room, passing out on the spare bed a few times and even wanted to eat a meal of particularly smelly fried food in my room, but was prevented from doing so, because I was going out. On two other occasions he actually did this and then started asking about the food that I had. The operator consumes a lot of fried food, often late in the evening and because he does not air the downstairs area, the smell travels up the stairs.

You might actually enjoy having the owner’s two dogs running in and out of your room and trying to jump on you or on your bed. As I mentioned, the owner isn’t a bad person at all, but rather overly sociable and seems really to have no interests except drugs. He will talk a lot about conspiracy theories and his wish to start a company and change the world. It becomes grating after a short time or if you want to go to bed. I had to wake him up and eject him from the room when I wanted to sleep.

The owner is also under the impression that he is ‘helping people’ by offering such a low-rent property. You also cannot obtain a key for the house, the owner relying on keeping a key under a flower pot in the garden. This deficient security was quite a worry and travel insurance would definitely not be valid in the event of theft.

The motivation in running this operation is in fact very casual and shows a commitment to making the minimum of effort. Alternatively the operator can be quite fussy about an open bedroom window because of a mosquito problem, which I did not experience at all. He complained about this twice after he woke up from passing out on the spare bed in my room. He was also very intolerant of my opening the skylights at the top of the stairs slightly.

One of the things which you must not do is to become too social with the owner. A trip into Amsterdam means that you will suddenly be paying for his travel, food, drugs, etc. I was repaid because I kept reminding him, but had to avoid this kind of venture after that. I am writing this because I don’t see this operation lasting very long because of the ongoing level of deterioration to the property.

The painted exterior of the house is starting to deteriorate visibly in places. The operator told me back in 2017 that no exterior work needs to be done for ten years. I don’t want to be one of the succession of strangers or somebody claiming to be a friend, who said all was well with this venue, when there are severe systemic problems and standards which are non-existent.

I did tell the operator this when I was asked and my further critique here is given here in the hope that things really improve, because as a friend that is what I would like to see most. I also want to prevent strangers from having their vacation totally spoiled. This Airbnb rental is not at all suitable for children or for people with mobility or allergy issues.

Airbnb most definitely sanitises the reviews for this property so that it can stay in business, generating a sustained income for the company. I raised my concerns with Airbnb back in 2017, but they seem to have no interest in basic standards, ordinary hygiene, organisation and the constant use of drugs in the house. They are not at all concerned that cheap accommodation should be of a good standard, pleasant to arrive at and stay in.

My intention in writing this review is so that the operator is provided with a very necessary wake-up call and gains the long-overdue insight to massively improve the venue, which is entirely in his own interest to do so. It is not my business to tell an adult how to live but there is so much wrong with this operation and his alternative way of living would not be acceptable to most people.

My reading of quite a number of the original reviews more than illustrated the level of dissatisfaction and frustration felt by a lot of people who have stayed at his house. If you simply want to pass out every night when you get back from Amsterdam then this venue might suit you perfectly.

Cleaner Mattresses at the Tip than this Airbnb

Posted on October 8, 2019

My friend and I booked a “Cosy Mid Terrace House” in Bangor, North Wales. We were attending a five-day yoga course which commenced on the evening of Thursday, September 26th a short drive away. We checked in at the house where there was a key box; anytime after 4:00 PM was supposed to be okay.

We arrived at 3:45 PM and entered the house. On first inspection, it looked a little grimy and uncared for, but it was only five nights. However, on further inspection, we found that the kitchen surfaces were very greasy and there was mould in the fridge, the carpet into the sitting room was frayed and coming away under the door strip causing a trip hazard.

On venturing upstairs, again everything was tatty. The shower was full of black mildew. But the worst thing of all was where I was supposed to sleep for those five nights. Firstly, I could feel the mattress springs through the duvet that was on top of the bed but what really finished things off was when the bedding was pulled back, the mattress was covered in various stains. I have seen better mattresses than this at my local tip.

We contacted the owner to advise her we were not happy and would have to seek alternative accommodation. She gave us a spiel about running late as a single mum she had to collect the children from school and was on her way over. We told her not to rush as there was no way we would be able to stay and started to tell her all the things that were wrong, whereupon she hung up.

As the course was starting at 4:00 PM, there was little time to find alternative accommodation and we ended up sharing a very small twin room in a hotel not too far away who could luckily fit us in as most places we tried were fully booked over the weekend. I requested a refund from the host via the Airbnb site – which she, of course, refused – so I waited the 72 hours and asked Airbnb to intervene.

I have since then been corresponding via email with an incompetent “Senior Case Manager” who has become quite threatening in her gobbledygook English stating that I must accept her offer of a “coupon” to be used on a future booking within eight hours – four hours at one point – and now 24 hours. I feel that as they have offered a “coupon” for the full amount that they must believe our story with photos provided, but as we do not know when or if we will be booking through Airbnb again, this is simply not good enough.

I am awaiting her response as to how long the “coupon” is valid for (probably 24 hours). Despite my requests for her to escalate this case on two occasions she continues to email me in English that is barely recognisable as the language I was brought up with, totally ignoring my requests and just threatening me with more deadlines. It is interesting to note that the “Cosy Mid Terrace House” is no longer listed in the site but if ever it should reappear I do not recommend booking it or the host’s cleaning skills.

Faulty Electrical Appliance Nearly Caused a Fire

Posted on October 8, 2019

We returned from a weeks trip to Trulli Margherita, a traditional Puglian villa located in Gorgofreddo, Puglia, Italy. We experienced a number of complaints and inconveniences, as well as one distressing, near fatal electrical fault, that unfortunately put a dampener on the rest of our stay.

Although Airbnb and the host were quick to handle most of the complaints we were certainly not happy with how our main complaint was handled. To summarise our complaints briefly:

The electrical plug-in fan caught fire, causing a plastic smelling smoke to fill the bedroom in which our 6-month old baby was sleeping.
There was no air-conditioning in the bedrooms.
‘Trulli shaped’ wood-fired oven locked away, not for guest use.
Bedside lamps to the second bedroom were not working on arrival, maintenance had to be called to replace them.
The house bathroom shower valve broke, maintenance called again.
Maintenance again called to provide more wine glasses

Our main complaint about this listing would be about an electrical plug-in fan provided in one of the bedrooms. To our horror, it caught fire and filled the room with plastic-smelling smoke. Our 6-month baby was sleeping in this room, so you can understand our distress at having to rush him to A&E to check he was okay. Please note we were sat outside in the courtyard area, checking on him at regular intervals as well as keeping an eye on him via video monitor.

After a few hours in the hospital, trying to convey the issue with a major language barrier, he thankfully checked out okay, but on doctor’s orders we had to follow up with another hospital appointment the next day and a further GP’s appointment again once we were home to be certain. This added incredible stress and anxiety to us for the rest of the holiday.

The host, although quick to respond and apologise for the incident, only offered a mere 10% refund as an apology (a sum we would have expected for the misleading description about the wood-fired oven alone), and no explanation as to whether the appliance had been checked over beforehand. We felt rather insulted at this small offer and upset the matter had not been taken more seriously. If we hadn’t checked on our baby at that time, the situation could have been a lot worse, even fatal.

Please note there were no fire alarms in the property that would have alerted us to this incident. We were further insulted during a phone call with the host where they stated the 10% refund from the owner was offered so we didn’t write a negative review – a rather tactless remark to make about their own self interests, in light of the serious nature of the incident.

To add insult to injury, during further discussions with the host after we arrived home, they claimed the fan was only for decorative use, and that we shouldn’t have been using it in the first place. This was never stated in writing or conveyed verbally during check in. If this were the case, why would they place a functioning fan in a bedroom if it were not for use in the first place? Especially a room with no air-conditioning? Very misleading if true, but we feel they are now only saying this to relieve themselves of responsibility and to avoid a case of negligence in terms of electrical safety.

Our next complaint would be about the ‘Trulli shaped’ wood-fired oven that is listed in the description of the property. On arriving at the property, we noticed it was actually locked away. We enquired with the host about this and they apologised about the misleading description and offered for the owner to come around and light it. Although a kind gesture, this was inconvenient and inflexible for us – we did not particularly want to ‘book’ in a time with the owner.

Overall it was disappointing, as the amenities and features of the property were some of the reasons why we booked it in the first place. Air conditioning is listed as an amenity; however, it is only offered in living spaces, not bedrooms. Again, a rather misleading description of the property. We had a few restless nights’ sleep due to the heat as a result.

The other maintenance issues, although not serious in nature, were just more inconveniences to us during our stay. We certainly got to know the maintenance man very well. Aside from our complaints and credit where credit is due, the Trulli itself is very charming and cosy – maybe a little basic – but perfect for a family getaway.

The real seller, however, is the spacious external, covered seating area and poolside. It was a shame the wood-fired oven was not for use, as we were looking forward to making pizzas out there. Other than that, the area was very good for evening dinners and sunny days lazing around the pool, which is exactly what we were after.

The area itself is a bit off the beaten track (hire car a must), but this rural setting was exactly what we were after. Within walking distance there is a well stocked ‘corner-shop’ as well as a charming pizzeria. Alberobello and Castellana Grotte (amazing caves) are both a 10- to 15-minute drive and well worth a visit. Monopoli and the surrounding beaches around 20-25 minutes and again worth seeing.

Unfortunately as a conclusion, I cannot recommend this listing to anyone, not until the owners, the host or Airbnb confirm there has been some sort of electrical safety check to assure users it is safe to stay in. They also need to go back and accurately re-write the listing description about he wood-fired oven and air-conditioning. A real shame, as otherwise it would have been a good stay.

Free Cancellation in 48 Hours that Doesn’t Exist

Posted on October 7, 2019

I looked for a month’s rental through Airbnb and I found one that I wanted. I read the cancellation policy carefully, stating that it could be cancelled within 48 hours for a full refund. I clicked first because I didn’t want to miss the rare room and figured if in two days I found it was something I didn’t like, e.g. the exact location, I could cancel.

It was a lot of money – 3000+ USD – and I suddenly thought that maybe it was better to find a way to be able to escape the long-term cancellation policy. I just cancelled it within hours. The refund was kind of a process but something they didn’t mention in the cancellation policy was that my payment method would be charged on March 26th for 600 USD. This amount was never mentioned.

I wanted to make sure before rebooking but it seemed like Airbnb just ignored me. That made me scared to proceed to any other booking; I was afraid of the fraudulent listings. Agoda and Expedia have never had this policy and the 30-day fine for advance notice was quite unfair. I then tried to figure it out by separating the booking into two periods. It’s more difficult but it should be more flexible.