Honeymoon Ruined Thanks to Airbnb and Croatia Host

We had an awful experience with Airbnb, and would not recommend it to friends. The short story is we booked a month for our honeymoon and had to leave two weeks early because the conditions were unacceptable.

The air quality was so bad, that our brand new white foam pillow we bought that first week looked like a yellow cigarette bud when we left. The place was very dirty, having paw marks in the dust under the bed along with random socks and other trash, and even a black hand mark on the mattress. The bed was broken and never fixed even until the day we left. Even after bringing up all these issues, the host would not even refund the unused two weeks.

I traveled 14 hours from the United States to Croatia for our honeymoon. From the moment I got into the apartment, it smelt bad. I thought it was because it was poorly ventilated and the host had a weird smelling fragrance in the house, I had to ventilate it and buy things that made it smell fresh (I should not have to do this). When done, I had to go to the Airport to pick up my wife, since we came on different flights, and arrived to the apartment late.

We were both very tired and jetlagged, waking up late and missed the very narrow 24-hour window that Airbnb has to report any problems. We would later find out that this is the policy that Airbnb uses to wash their hands of any problems and not help you in anything whatsoever, even when we checked in a day later and had photographic proof of the issues.

We thought we were just experiencing jetlag, and that the pillows were uncomfortable, so we bought a nice memory foam pillow, but after a few days we noticed that it was the bed that was sinking. We had back and neck problems because of this through our whole stay: having to sleep on the couch as an alternative, then placing mattress and sleeping on the floor.

We contacted the host but they said everything would be addressed “tomorrow,” which could sometimes take more than two days and even then I just got excuses that the bed was just soft, and got a thin bed cover to fix the issue. Nothing really began to be fixed until I checked the bed, and noticed the the middle legs were broken, and sent the pictures through Airbnb. By then it took another four days, and two more attempts to fix it. We were also waking up congested and our nasal passages full of mucus. We would snore during the night and we did not normally snore.

Only when we had been out walking for hours and came back, did we realize our clothes stank, but that trash was so engrained in our noses we could not tell. After leaving to another apartment we realized all our clothes stank like cigarettes, even the ones in our luggage that we had never used or taken out. We had to rewash everything and our brand new $100 pillow we just bought not only stank, but was yellow on the end that the pillow cover did not reach all the way.

This might not be an issue for you but we also had to call the host because two out of two bulbs were out in the bathroom. We moved the couch so we could set it up to sleep and found an unknown civilization of dust bunnies which we had to clean. Because of this we tried to peacefully ask Airbnb to refund the unused two weeks as they had pictures of these issues and proof we had already rebooked. In any situation, this is a terrible experience. Specially when you are in a foreign country and are dependent on intermediaries.

The host refused, and Airbnb washed their hands of any wrongdoing because we “failed” to report things within 24 hours of our booking. We booked for the 22nd and did not check in until the 23rd. Then all of this happened. You judge what is correct and what you want to gamble on, but I would definitely not recommend this stay. Be an Angry American and complain about everything you see and smell the first 24 hours to Airbnb. If not, this garbage could happen to you.