My sister acts as a secretary for me, which really means she saves my life regularly. She booked me into the home of an Airbnb host in Kenasaw, GA (a suburb of Atlanta) in a condominium complex. Parking is an issue in Georgia. My sister had asked about parking and the lady texted me a parking number. The room was around back, which was strange.
I arrived during the day to a space with one bed, two sheets, a small refrigerator, and one roll of toilet tissue. The next day I got up, went to work, and stayed late because of torrential storms. When I arrived back at the room in the flood the lady’s van was parked in my spot. There were no others so I knocked on her door several times. I couldn’t get any response from this host.
I got my briefcase, my umbrella and coat and smudged along the trail to the back of the condo. There was no lighting in the back and I was using my phone to provide light. I got to the front door and there had been some carpentry work done while I was gone directly in front of my door. I steeped over part of it and a board that looked as if it were put there to walk on. The board slipped; I fell into the apartment door. I broke my wrist in two places.
That night my wrist hurt so I decided to go to the ER. I went out to get into my car about 4:00 AM and it was gone. I went through the acts of trying to contact my host, later to find she had had it towed. My focus changed from my wrist to my car. $235 later I was back in my car. It was time to go to work so I bought a wrist brace which helped a lot but not completely.
I got the host on the phone once and she very nervously said she didn’t own the property; it was her bosses. While looking for my car I called the condo association. They told me that area was the host’s and she knew there were not zones for Airbnb because she’d been reported before.
My wrist got worse before I finally went to the ER. It’s broken in two places because the host didn’t follow code. One other very simple violation of code is the life threatening issue of no smoke detectors. I photographed all of this. Stay away from this property – it could cost you your life.
P.S. If anyone who reads this knows a good personal injury attorney I would certainly like to meet with the attorney. I’m looking at six months in a cast and an operation.
What an awful story. I hate to hear this happened to you. The Atlanta area is having more & more Airbnb restrictions which means more & more people trying to get around the rules.
Leave a brutally honest review of the lack of sheets, towels, etc & that the Condo association told you this was an illegal Airbnb offering. Also, us the “report this listing” on the Airbnb website to report an illegal offering.
Contact Airbnb via Facebook & Twitter to report this problem (social media gets their attention)
On a personal note, if your sister does your Airbnb bookings, be sure the account is set up as a WORK account. Otherwise to have someone else do your bookings can be considered a third party booking and against Airbnb’s terms of service (meaning you broke their rules, they will not offer much assistance).