We found a place in Boston for the Charles River Regatta. The city was extremely crowded that weekend so we took one of the few places left. Once we made contact with the host via Airbnb, he contacted us via phone to say he could save us the deposit fee but that we had to discontinue our quest for his place through Airbnb. So we did.

His place was an absolute dump. He slept on his couch and we slept in his room. He had two other guests in another bedroom and we all shared the same bathroom. There were many unsavory issues about this place: the cat sleeping on top of the coffee maker; not being allowed to use our own soap; one bar was shared by all five people.

The fact that Airbnb thought we had turned down this particular place meant that we could not leave any comment on the site to warn other people. Our host made a very pretty penny that weekend and honestly, I’m extremely hesitant to use Airbnb again.