Tag Archives: airbnb amenities

Left Airbnb After Host Lied About Internet Access

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I was a regular Airbnb customer, and this is my story. I went to Brazil for a business trip, from Ireland. I booked a room in Sao Paulo. I was arriving on a Sunday, and I work remotely for an Irish company. Therefore an internet connection is a must for me every place I go. I arrived to this place, and there was no person to welcome me; the host left one key with the concierge of the building, who works for the building and not for the host, so he gave me the key and that was it.

I entered the place, and there was no internet. I worked with it, spending two hours trying to fix it, but everything seemed normal – the reason there was no internet was actually that there was no service, so you could connect to the network, but there was no connection. I went to a bar with free wifi and contacted the host. She told me she lived 800 km from there, and that she would contact the internet company. Then she confirmed there was something wrong and that the company would fix it on Monday.

As I had to work, I moved into a hotel beside the property, where I was able to connect to the wifi. I spent ten nights in that hotel and the internet problem was never resolved. The host said to Airbnb that there were no internet problems, and that the issue was probably my device, being that I had four devices, and I worked in IT. Therefore I requested a refund from Airbnb. After the first night, Airbnb told me they would not refund me if I cancelled from their website. In fact I did not cancel the booking from the website, and they told me: “Okay, but you left the place” I said: “Yes, I left, but I still have the key.”

Then they asked me to provide pictures. I provided pictures of the modem with all the lights on, the devices not connecting, etc. The host got her money for no one being there, Airbnb has had my case open now for four months, and no one has yet contacted me. When I call Airbnb they say: “Your case is with the legal department…” I believe Airbnb could have stopped the payment from going to the host until the case had been resolved.

Airbnb Not Providing Guest Protection As Advertised

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Never again, Airbnb. I am a professional and network daily with many other professionals, government personnel, and elected officials. I’m now attempting to get back more than $3,000 from a host whose property was seriously falsely advertised and unusable. To date, Airbnb customer service has been no help as advertised. One of the reasons I used Airbnb for a Cape Kata/Thailand rental was because they claimed they would help if there were major issues upon arrival and the funds would not be turned over to the host for at least 24 hours after arrival in the event something was wrong. It was wrong alright.

The photos used by the host were apparently taken over a decade ago when the property, pool and furnishings were in better shape. We arrived to find a rundown, grossly unsafe property which included but was not limited to: mold in the bathrooms and throughout the units; an active aggressive beehive with bees inside the units; broken and uneven stairs to/from the units; multiple spider webs in the bathroom areas; old severely worn furniture with some pieces broken; a brown-stained pool with dirt and leaves and other unknown items; marijuana butts found outside doors of the rooms/units; personal items (probably staff) including used toothbrushes, clothing, and other hygiene-related garments in all the units.

We were unable to reach the owner. A staff member in charge of the property told us this happens all the time and people refused to stay once they arrive and actually see the property. After a 26-hour flight and an hour taxi ride to the property, I had to scramble to find another suitable place to stay (last minute hotel) at great expense for my family and grandchildren. There has been no help thus far from Airbnb. Of course the property owner is claiming nothing was wrong and he was never contacted.

Now I’m in a fight to recover my $3,000. Never again Airbnb. I’m going to tell everyone I come into contact with about this horrific experience. If I can average just five people a day, that’s 1825 people a year and if those people share my Airbnb and Cape Kata horror story with just five others, that’s 9125 I can reach this year alone, not including Facebook, pictures of the property I’ll post on Instagram, etc.

Penthouse in Chiang Mai with Dismissive Host

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Do not rent this apartment. Stay away from this apartment and landlord. If you are spending this kind of money, you are a discerning traveler. I lived in the unit for nearly five weeks and know the unit and building inside and out. The building is very old but in a good location. The building certainly has not kept up with newer properties in the Nimman area of Chiang Mai. I knew about the airplanes taking off low and overhead, one every five minutes or less from 12:15 AM to 5:45 AM, but that was just the straw that broke the camel’s back.

Moments after I checked out of the unit after nearly five weeks of staying there, I got a email from Airbnb asking for about $700. I was shocked, but this is how the landlord operates. I completely disputed her claim and would not pay the money requested. As a matter of fact, I have received a partial refund for my problems. Who do you believe?

On March 3rd, we had a walk-through and she returned my security deposit and was all smiles but now is trying to “retrade” the rental rate, which from the messaging she was always complaining about my low rental rate. Let me further explain my side of things.

First off, she claimed I fried the security camera. I don’t know one way or the other about the security cameras, but I’m sure I had nothing to do with it. During my stay there were many surges or brief disruptions of power that required me to go into the utility closet and reset the internet router. The router was next the security system main box, or at least I believed it to be the security camera main box. I noticed that all of this was connected to a surge protector power strip. So based on that alone there is no way the system is fried. She just doesn’t know how to reset.

As another layer of power protection, I noticed the security system also had a spare backup battery. If you know anything about power backups, you know they also offer surge power protection. The landlord lives in Bangkok and is basically absentee, so she has no idea what is going on, and only wants to collect money and not deal with the responsibilities of ownership. The backup battery is probably dead. There’s no way that the system was fried. She’s just a mean lady and trying to get money out of me. I do not accept this.

The landlord also doesn’t know how to work her electronics which she admitted to me on day one. I have a whole list of things that she refused to acknowledge that I raised on day one. Most importantly, the place was uninhabitable because of bar and nightclub noise and loud music festivals across the street. Besides the outrageously loud festivals where the mattress, walls, and windows shook, the apartment throbbed with bar and nightclub bass and noise seven days a week. I have lots of videos documenting this.

Another major problem was that one of the major air conditioners was blowing hot air and would not work. As result, the apartment was much warmer than it should have been. I have video of the thermostat where it shows the big main room is 84.4 degrees. I complained in writing on day one about this. She was very quick to say that since I got a discount, she was not up for repairs or problems and insisted ‘everything was perfect’. Upon checkout I showed her the problem with the air-conditioner and she said that since it would’ve taken four workmen to address the problem she did not want to disturb me. That was a bunch of baloney. She’s a double crosser.

The showerhead needed to be replaced because there was build up inside the shower head. I complained in an email on day one about the shower head. It’s either in a direct email to her or in the Airbnb messages, not sure. She would not admit to this and insisted everything was fine (from far away Bangkok). Now she is trying to charge me saying I ruined the shower head. It might simply need to be tightened – I’m not sure. She didn’t even check, and she’s just trying to charge me.

The fan is kitchen was out, which made the kitchen operations less than ideal. The apartment smelled of whatever the next door neighbor was cooking. She was terribly bitter about sending a man out to set up the cable box. She’s very mean.

The bedding was a joke. On day one we complained we had a comforter with just the insides but no duvet. There was no response except to question my ‘mental stability’. Today during the walkthrough she surmised that if only the cleaning knew to add a duvet it would have been done. She had an answer for everything but it never solved the problem. The king mattress was a $99 special so I offered to split the cost of a foam topper but got scolded in writing.

We were promised weekly cleaning but only got one weekly cleaning in the 33+ days we were there. Meanwhile we kept the place in immaculate condition. Thirteen ceiling lights were out which she failed to deal with prior to delivery (absentee). I took it upon my myself to go into old town (major traffic) to a wholesale lighting supplier and spent the afternoon on a ladder replacing lightbulbs. When I informed her of this, she never thanked me or acknowledged it, just continued to attack me in messages.

On day one, I complained about these issues, especially the bad AC and the festival noise, and she said that I didn’t pay enough to get 24-hour service and that otherwise everything was fine. I responded with some hot rhetoric but never crossed the line (because my mother raised me right). She then threatened to have the Thai military police toss me out, and I have this in so many words in writing.

Furthermore, she questioned my mental stability in writing, when in fact I’m a meditator, yogi, vegan, and strivingly conscious person for whatever that is worth to you. Following her threat, I sent her an apology email because I was literally afraid for my well being. Thai military police don’t ask questions. Think about that for a minute. An Airbnb property being the nexus of threatening American citizens like this.

The good guy part of me also wanted to be on good terms with someone like my landlord. She was holding $660 cash as a security today upon checkout, and she gave me back only $450 because she says I used too much electricity. In fact the contract allowed for 50 kW per day, but there was just the two of us, and it turns out 50 kW a day is not enough. This is unethical. It’s a set up to be able to hold some of the security deposit. What a scam. I then learned that it is against Airbnb policy to give and accept cash for security. She’s an experienced landlord with Airbnb so she should have known better. I did not.

Sorry Airbnb. I have written a candid and truthful review. People should know the truth. People who spend this kind of money expect more and they expect to be treated the way that they would treat someone. You know who you are. The landlord’s approach to everything is not acceptable. Find another place to stay.

Inaccessible, Leaky House in Bali Makes for a Bad Stay

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We booked a house in Bali this February 2018 for 25 days. Overall the reviews were good – 4 1/2 stars – so we trusted in them. However, as we arrived we saw that the whole house was a rundown disaster. The most it was capable of was for private use, but not in any condition to rent out as a holiday home at all.

We are pretty sure the house was built on a cliff without any permission. During rainy season the part of the cliff where the house was built on was eaten away by big rock and mudslides due to the fact that the water was running down to the sea nearly every day… that was scary. The only access to the house was over steps, but not normal steps; you had to climb around ten minutes down the cliff, over broken, irregular, slippery, tumble-down steps.

When it was dark, of course there was no light on the property. To give it a little bit more of a kick, there were cables everywhere and water pipes running over the steps; we had to clamber over them. The whole stair system wasn’t maintained at all; we all slipped away, because it was so mossy and slippery like ice. My son and I were injured on our arms and legs and we’re not too stupid to walk up steps. As we were travelling with our child, it was impossible to walk up them everyday during those 25 days. In the Airbnb listing the host didn’t even mention one word about the steps or difficult access to the house and she knew that we were travelling with our child.

The house and the whole area were so rotten and covered with trash and mud that there were rats climbing into the main room and over the roof of the bedrooms. In one bedroom, there was a lot of water damage; there was always water running down the wall over the ceiling when it was raining… and we stayed during rainy season. It was extremely humid, stinky and moldy. There was no way to use this room.

We already had the electricity break down on the first night, but we couldn’t find the fuse box. The next day the housemaid came, because we informed her an electrician had to come. He just “fixed” it superficially, but at least we knew about the fuse box. We were shocked to see an open box with just three simple fuses for the whole house, open wired cables, no FI switch, everything outside behind the house just a few centimetres away from the thatched roof. In front of the box was construction waste and big glass shards, so it was hard to get there and not get injured. The whole situation was unacceptable and really dangerous.

Not even this was not enough. The host placed two night table lamps next to the bed in the main room. One lamp had parts of a broken cable with open wires; she just fixed it with paper tape. The other lamp she extended not with a proper extension cord, just by cutting the plug from two cables and connecting them very amateurishly. This was one reason for the regular electricity blackouts until the whole makeshift wiring started to burn down under our bed. I could make the list longer and longer.

Just to be clear – the host wasn’t Indonesian. We met extra friendly and reliable Indonesian people whilst travelling over seven weeks in Bali. All the other accommodations we had stayed in were above average, the same price level with a super fair price-performance ratio. The host from the horror house came from Europe. She was travelling the world and wrote that she studied economics; she should have known better. For sure everything she did was on purpose and her whole behaviour was negligent.

We were really in shock about the whole situation and we tried hard to find new accommodations near us for a long term stay. We moved out on day 3 of 25. We tried to find a solution first with the host, then “together” with Airbnb; that’s what made the situation even more absurd. We wrote a safety warning addressed to Airbnb about this location, but they seemed fine with everything.

Airbnb’s “mediation center” decided that everything was perfect in the house and there was no refund at all for us – we paid over €2000. No apology or regret from the host, just lies and rudeness. We filmed and photographed the whole circumstance, so we could prove it all. We gave all the information to Airbnb, as we were told. We talked on the phone to our “case manager”, someone who seemed mostly trained to deny, and not provide customer service or problem solving.

The host lied to Airbnb by saying that the photos and videos weren’t from her house, but if you compare them, it’s easy for anyone to see that they are. The case manager just didn’t care. Obviously it worked better for her denying policy to just not see the issues? Just be careful with Airbnb claims – you have just 24 hours to file a report with Airbnb. After that you are out, no matter what is up. This time is set not to make it customer friendly – it is set up to exclude an enormous number of claims.

Our realistic, but not good review just came up on the page, when we pressed Airbnb. It even came up late. Normally it has to be posted within 14 days and we wrote it on the first day of the automatic invitation to review. Did you know that every guest has to write a review first and then the host has to review it before his review will be published? When he does nothing and he is clever enough, he can censor the review or even prevent it from being posted.

Of course the host gave a bad review for us on Airbnb with lots of lies and incivilities, even though we left her house with respect, no damages, no mess, and no dust or trash behind us. After all of that, we still got a bad review. This review system in our opinion is not a realistic or democratic process. We don’t trust it at all anymore, and we don’t trust Airbnb.

They just want to get bigger and bigger. It is not about hosting anymore, it is just about making money and winning market shares. They don’t care about a single customer, they take it all from us, and if they skip one they take from the next. They don’t care about the neighbourhoods or the cities they are destroying, they don’t care about the originally nice idea of hosting, and they don’t care about culture. They are just pretending. They are abusing everything to get more. They are a hypercapitalist ulcer that pretends to bring the people together, but they really don’t care… we are not conspiracy theorists.

The house is still online. Airbnb is doing nothing, so be careful with booking with them, something I would never do again, even when there are lots of nice hosts. I’m sure I will find real hospitality somewhere else. We booked Airbnb five times. We had two really bad experiences: the first we tried to take with humor and did not complain, but the second one was enough. We put Airbnb on the case, and that’s what made the whole situation even more obvious that this would be our last time.

A Holiday from Hell Thanks to Flooded Apartment

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We arrived in Palma to find our apartment had been flooded. Our host took us to another that had been hurriedly evacuated by a Roma family (at least that’s how it looked). Our dealings with our Eastern European host were through a go-between who was simply charming and promised the Earth, but delivered nothing. We were promised we would eventually be settled in our booked apartment but it was never going to happen.

On our third day, water poured out from our shower and flooded the place, so we were moved to a hotel for one night. At first the go-between, who was on a sympathy kick, told us how lucky we were and he was paying for the hotel out of his own pocket. Fawlty Towers would have been an improvement.

Despite being asked to provide three rooms, the owner waited until we arrived before frantically searching for bed linen. We were asked to wait with our cases half way up an unlit staircase while he went looking. After twenty minutes or so there was a frantic knocking on the front door – the police. They had come to arrest a guy in the room opposite the one I was destined for. There weren’t three rooms, only two.

At this we told the go-between to forget it. He finally put us in a hostel. It was clean and modern and had ensuites so we were okay with this. But we had no idea where we were staying the following night as he had confessed our originally booked apartment was nowhere near habitable, the cost of the hostel was twice that of Fawlty Towers, and he wasn’t sure he’d get back what he’d already paid.

We had already started negotiating with Airbnb by email and phone (they hate you using the phone and hide contact numbers). They had only two responses to urgent messages: Airbnb didn’t believe we weren’t in the booked apartment so we had to send photos to prove it. Of course, by then we were in the hostel. Luckily I had taken a couple of pics to send to my wife so we retrieved those and sent them to Airbnb.

They then agreed on a partial refund but debited us the full cost of the first night, despite the fact that our original contract had not been honoured. We had already booked a new apartment so the refund was good news but still cost us. Then as we were (mid-afternoon) on our way to the new place the phone rang and it was the go-between, saying the leak had been repaired and we could go back to our revolting apartment. We told him where he could shove it.

The new apartment was lovely, modern and clean. However it turned out this apartment was next to a drug dealer’s home. Although the block had a entry lock I think they disabled it at night. We had paper-thin walls, and comings and goings all night long. This ended at 5:00 AM on our last night with a couple of guys hammering on the door and kicking it trying to attract attention. I’m not sure anyone was even in. I got out of bed and went to our door to suggest they stop (unpleasant confrontation in the extreme) but parted telling them I was calling the police. They left. The end of a lovely holiday.

Attempted False Charges after Nightmare Stay

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We rented an Airbnb in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida in December. Immediately after the payment, Airbnb notified us that the owner wanted an additional $600 in addition to the posted cost. We refused to pay. After checking out, the owner claimed we stole six forks that cost $15 each and demanded payment for that and an extra cleaning charge on top of the $125 we had already paid.

The property needed no more than the usual cleaning that one would expect. For ten days we had no clean towels or sheets and the temperature dropped to the 40s for three nights. There was no heat. The owner said she would do something about it, but did not. A portable space heater would have been sufficient.

The advertisement on Airbnb stated that the place had cable TV and wifi. The TV was hooked up to an antenna and reception constantly broke up which made it virtually impossible to watch a program or a football game. The wifi was also intermittent.

No one puts $15 forks in a rental unit when they can be bought very cheaply at Walmart. We refused to pay the additional charges; however, Airbnb has your credit card and can make charges if they agree with the owner. In this case, the owner did not respond to our complaints about the charges when we refused to pay and Airbnb did not charge us.

One night we stayed in a hotel which cost less and was much nicer. We will not use Airbnb again as they apparently have no quality control and accept owners’ descriptions of their properties even if they are false.

The Airbnb Customer is Not Always Right

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What a joke; I thought the customer was always right. Not in this case. I brought issues to a host’s attention about his place and the lack of help from his helper. Well, you thought I had accused him of fraud or something worse. Never had he heard this before, claiming he only had “happy customers”… just some of the responses he was giving me. He then went on to respond online about this, stating that I was impolite and rude to his assistant. If asking for someone to show their face and meet the customer to make sure everything is okay (finding where to go, making sure the room is suitable to enter, finding all the necessary items needed – towels, water, facilities to eat) then we must of been the rudest people ever.

The Airbnb response was even better, stating that we had been put on the “not providing a quality customer” category. Needless to say, we will not be using Airbnb again and certainly will not be using this whole building again, let alone this host. After reading some of the responses here, I know our situation is not that severe, but when you pay a decent amount of money to have a good holiday only to be treated like we had done something criminal it has an affect on you. I do feel better knowing we are not the only ones but feel sorry for those who have been put through this as well. Thank you for listening to my winge.

Airbnb Listing was Nothing like the Description

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My wife and I were in Mansfield, Victoria and we needed a place to stay for my mother’s funeral. We searched and found a place with great pictures that showed it being neat and tidy with positive reviews. We booked it and arrived at the agreed time, then immediately noticed that the place did not resemble the photos: the garden was neglected, the grass overgrown, there were weeds all over the flower beds, etc. This was an extremely neglected property.

My wife stayed in the car and I knocked on the door to meet the host. Several dogs were barking and jumped all over me. The host arrived and the dogs continued to jump as I walked into the house. The foul stench from the five other dogs in the house was overwhelming and once again the property did not resemble the photos; the host had not cleaned and it was very untidy.

After viewing the messy kitchen I was taken over the long grass to the self contained studio. I was horrified when I entered; she had made one bed and the other was a bare mattress with a pile of crumpled sheets on top. There were no pictures of the interior on the website and I understood why. The two beds were pushed into the corners of the room. In between the beds there was a space of one meter and a large 1.5-meter high weaving loom occupied it. What could we possibly want to use this for, I asked myself?

There was a large clothes stand storing random items occupying the rest of the space. I was speechless; this was a storage shed and she was renting it out. Worse still, the corrugated tin roof was exposed on the inside, radiating heat like you wouldn’t believe. No wonder there were two oversized pedestal fans randomly placed inside, because there were no fly screens on the windows. She generously supplied insect repellent just in case we needed to open the windows and let in the cool air.

There was no fridge, running water, kettle, microwave, TV, Internet, or bath towels – just some beds and some useless junk. I noticed that there were no outside lights and the main house with a toilet and running water was some 100 meters away. There was no path leading to the main house and the grass was quite overgrown, with plenty of places for the Australian insects and reptiles to hide out of sight when it got dark.

We both like to shower at night before bed and I knew my wife was not going to handle this. I took it up with the host who explained that there were torches in case we needed to visit the main house during the night. My wife and I stayed for ten minutes before we walked back to the house and told her that it was not acceptable. We asked for a refund and she refused and became quite hostile at that point. She told us that this is the country and that’s how people live here. Worse still, I received a message later to say that she had contacted the police and they are looking for us. She also posted a review of us to say that we damaged the property.

Two Nights in Airbnb Hell for Pregnant Guests

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My boyfriend and I wanted a quick vacation before the arrival of our first child. At four and a half months pregnant, we drove down to Miami from Toronto. We booked a nice-looking studio apartment in Miami and got ready for our trip. So, we made the 24-hour drive down to Miami and arrived at our listing.

The host came out of her house to greet us and show us to our place. She showed us where to find the key, and then started speaking to my boyfriend in Spanish. I didn’t understand much of their exchange, but he later explained to me that she told him “The owner of this property lives down the street, if she comes around or asks you any questions, just tell her you’re friends of mine visiting.”

I thought this was kind of sketchy, so I called Airbnb to let them know. Airbnb called me back, and let me know that they’ve simply decided to cancel the reservation and we needed to find a new place to stay. It was a Sunday afternoon at 7:30 PM. I was almost five months pregnant and dead tired from a 2500 km drive. I mentioned this all to the rep on the phone, and she told me that she was finished working and someone new would call me back right away.

Fast forward to two hours later, with me hounding and harassing Airbnb – spent well over 45 minutes waiting on the phone, only to be hung up on multiple times – and finally someone called me back. She said there was nothing available for the same night in our same price range. I argued over and over and over with her, and then she finally asked her manager for an approval to cover the cost of a new, more expensive listing.

She explained that she found a new listing with similar amenities to the one we previously chose. So we went ahead and headed over to the new place. The host on Airbnb was listed as a woman, but some dude showed up to show us around the apartment. We walked in; the place was a disgusting dump. He quickly rushed us through, and showed us the damp towels and airbeds. There was literally nothing else in the apartment. It was an empty apartment with two air mattresses on the floor. There were none of the amenities we previous requested: parking, TV, wifi.

To top it all off, the apartment door was secured only by a cheap $10 doorknob lock. There was a deadbolt, but they didn’t give us the key for it. I called Airbnb again at 11:30 PM and explained to them that this was not acceptable. The man on the phone told us that we should stay the night since it was late. He told me a case manager would contact me in the morning to sort it out.

The next morning, I called Airbnb yet again only to be told that my reservation couldn’t be cancelled since I stayed the first night. I explained to her that I was instructed to stay there by one of her colleagues, and she didn’t care. She told me I had to ask the host for a cancellation. I contacted the host, and she told us she could only offer a 50% refund. She then sent me a few nasty messages saying how we wasted her time and were just scamming her to get a “free night.”

We ignored that and told her we were leaving. She told us to leave the keys on the counter and lock the door. We did as instructed. We did get the 50% refund, and then after more and more arguing with Airbnb and speaking with a manager, they agreed to give us back the other 50% of the money to make a new reservation.

Finally, we brought all of our stuff back to the car, and as we were leaving, we saw a disgusting cockroach in the sink. I took a picture and sent it to Airbnb, which they totally ignored. I called them and aseked if they received my photo; they said someone would call me back. There still hasn’t been a response. I called them again and asked if they were really going to let people keep renting from a place that’s infested with cockroaches, and of course the line “disconnects” again.

Anyway, I put that out of my mind and tried to enjoy the rest of my vacation. A few days later, I saw the initial host wrote a bad review on my profile (how do they even leave me a review when I didn’t even stay at her house?). The second host sent me a request to pay her $285 saying she needed to replace the lock on the door (the $10 doorknob lock) because she couldn’t find the key that I left. I called Airbnb. They told me that I left the key and it was not my problem. The rep on the phone told me that a case manager would call me back. Again, no call back from Airbnb.

What was supposed to be a quick and fun vacation turned into a majorly stressful event. Two days of our week-long trip were wasted moving from listing to listing and talking on the phone with Airbnb reps. I will never use Airbnb again.

Airbnb Nightmare Host Goes to Extremes for Cash

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Just prior to my departure from Canada to the UK, the host cancelled the booking we had made ten months prior. Airbnb sent a few recommendations, and we selected one. The pictures on the Airbnb website showed a spacious environment, in which the French Door from the kitchen was open and I assumed led to a garden. I assumed it was a terrace house since that is the style of house I had originally booked.

The property was actually a former counsel flat. The French Doors opened onto a tiny deck measuring approximately two feet by two feet, a far cry from a private garden. The entranceway to the property was littered with garbage and the stairway smelt of urine. A large sign was posted outside the entrance way stating that the authorities were aware of all the violence in this building and surrounding grounds and will be increasing their surveillance of the area. I felt played. I was so terribly mislead. The homeowner told me the doors to the flat needed to be locked at all times due to the high crime rate in the building. Happy holidays.

Do not take Airbnb property recommendations. Do not rent properties that do not show the outside of the building from both the front and back. To protect yourself from bad hosts, I would strongly recommend you take pictures of the inside and outside of the property on arrival and again when you leave, so the condition in which you left a property can not be debated.

The second location I had the displeasure of staying at was in Somerset. The posting made it sound that the house was located in the townsite of Shepton Mallet, but it was in the district of Shepton Mallet, a 15-minute drive to the townsite and any amenities. The pictures on the Airbnb website made the dwelling look much larger than it was and showed lovely white leather furniture. In reality, the inside of the home looked more like a charity shop with all mismatched furniture. The pictures of the outside of the chapel style home showed a lovely manicured lawn, with a fence since the home was supposed to be dog-friendly. We chose this rental primary based on that picture. The garden actually belonged to the neighbour.

On the day of our arrival, we were treated to an extensive electronic rule book and all the additional fees, such as utilities, that could be added after our stay. All additional charges were at the discretion of the host after our departure. Before we left the home my daughter and I tidied up, mopped the floors, put away all the dishes, following the host’s instructions to the letter. The house lacked basic cleaning supplies, and the electronic rule book had stated if there were no cleaning supplies, it was up the guest to buy them.

After our departure, the host fined us for the recycling bin being full and then gave us a bad review for having a full recycling box. Looking for additional funds, they searched the contents of our sealed garbage bags. Potato chip packages were deemed party food, and were written into the review as evidence we were “extreme partiers.” Again, potato chip packages that were pilfered from trash bags. The dog’s adsorbent mats, which we had brought in case the dog had an accident and to protect the host’s home, were found in the garbage and we were billed for them.

These people dug though our garbage to find things to bill for. I find it sickening that the host went through our sealed garbage bags and wrote about us based on the contents. I felt violated. Once again, I felt like I had been played as a fool and was angry that I had spent so much time cleaning up the place and leaving it in much better condition than I found it. I am appalled that this type of host is allowed to continue with Airbnb; she is dishonest, a cheat, and vulgar. All I can assume based on her behaviour she must have a severe mental disorder that has been left untreated.

Ask your host for the square footage of the dwelling, since photographs can be very deceptive and misrepresent the size of the dwelling. Ask your host if the photos of the property are an accurate depiction, and when they were taken. Ask your host if there are additional fees that do not appear on the website. Ask your host about the rules for pets. Do not put dog mats in the property’s garbage bin. It can not be understated how much you need to protect yourself from dishonest hosts, by taking picture of the property on arrival and on departure, and time stamp them.