Tag Archives: airbnb cleaning

Airbnb has no Standards for Hosts and their Homes

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This was my second time going through a dirty Airbnb experience. I guess one time wasn’t enough for me to learn the lesson. In the heat of the moment I have decided to go to Honolulu for quick getaway. I was on a budget and decided to go with Airbnb instead of a hotel. I had booked a condo that got my attention with its very colorful wall paintings and warm atmosphere (how far that was from the truth).

Upon arriving, I first noticed that the place had nothing to do with the pictures. The colorful wall was gone; it looked very empty and out of order. That turned on my warning signs. It didn’t take too long for me to spot the filth in the place: cabinets, walls, mirrors, windows… you name it. The only thing I could say that truly felt clean were the bed sheets. I am a very clean and detail oriented person and very sensitive to dirty environments.

However, that was not the end. The place felt like someone donated already “used to the limits” stuff and placed it in there for the guests, including towels, pans, and furniture. The wallpaper was coming off and the toilet was scratched and stained indicating the long years of use.

I contacted the host and he did agree to refund the money. The problem was that I didn’t know the rules and the process of getting a refund. I filed a complaint with Airbnb, attaching pictures. The next day I got a notification that the host was refunding my money. So I was very satisfied, and moved on with my vacation.

The day after that I saw there was a message from Airbnb. I opened it and noticed that I had to accept the refund. So I pressed the button, and because it was one day too late they couldn’t process the refund. I called Airbnb and they said they had not received any complaint from me (I am very sure they did but had a reason to pretend not to), and promised to fix the refund.

They halfway did: instead of $300 I got $178 out of the $502 I originally paid. I am not that mad with happened to the money but mostly that those stressful situations even occur. There is a lack of competence on the part of Airbnb in any apartment’s quality control. There is a 50/50 chance you will come a across great place or hellish crib. It is messing up our vacations and plans we make. We lose money and get more stressed than relaxed.

It looks as if everyone who has an empty corner in their house think he/she can be a host. The truth is to be a host is a bit more difficult than just putting a blanket on a mattress. It involves time and dedication. I personally believe that we should not put the total blame on the hosts but mostly on Airbnb for not putting any restrictions and control on the hosts to follow and to apply in their apartments.

Convenient and Very Disgusting Lovely Manhattan Airbnb

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Last weekend I visited NYC and decided to stay in an Airbnb. Obviously the pictures looked very nice and all, so I went for it. I arrived late on a Friday, tired from the bus, and just wanted to get in the shower and sleep before the touristy and busy day I was going to have. I arrived at the house and I had to guess where and how to open a lockbox that was placed in a nail salon next to the building to get my keys, feeling like a total thief. However, that wasn’t the biggest issue. The neighborhood wasn’t safe, and the building couldn’t have been worse: very old, full of trash, smelly. I thought to myself “never mind”, but then saw my room. At first impression it seemed alright, but when I looked closely I started to notice that it was very dirty: I mean dust everywhere, a little trash on the sheets (which led me to believe that the bed sheets had not been changed, because if they had removed the sheets to change them, the trash would have fallen off). The only place to leave my things was on a little table that was filthy and the worst part was the bathroom.

I needed a shower after the long journey and I realized that the shower was really gross, and had hair in it; you could see the dirt, there were leftover things from previous guests, and as soon as I opened the shower I realized that the water didn’t drain. I had to remove a pile of strangers’ hair myself, and ended feeling dirtier from the shower than from the bus. The toilet had pee marks on it and pubic hair. Underneath it were many other marks and things; you could notice right away that it hadn’t been cleaned in weeks.

The air conditioner didn’t work properly so my first night in NYC was a nightmare. I put a towel on the bed and I covered the pillow with my sweater because I didn’t want my body touching the sheets or the cover (which had some unknown spots on it that could have easily been something sketchy). Really the worst part is that I got charged a 30 USD fee for a cleaning service. Obviously I asked for a refund from the host and he denied that the room was dirty. If he is the host he should know when the room is clean. I went through Airbnb to get a refund I still don’t have a resolution. Since the host decided to deny paying me back for the cleaning fee and not apologize about the state of the room, I decided to share my story publicly.

Take Pictures and Notify Airbnb Immediately

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My husband and I had a lovely trip to New Mexico last month. We stayed at a nice house at a great location with beautiful scenery. When we arrived, I went to sit on the couch in the living room and saw that there was a large stain where something had been spilled on one of the cushions in the seat of the couch. Being a tad OCD and grossed out by that, I just went and sat on the other couch as there were two. My husband sat on the couch with the stain as he is not as silly as I am, but he did question why anyone would buy such a light colored couch for a rental home (it was a light tan or beige color). Other than that, we thought nothing about it.

During the week, we noted several other issues. The first day there we noted that the tub in the bathroom was leaking onto the hard wood floors. We hadn’t used the tub nor would we as we are shower people. We alerted the local person who manages the property for the owner, and the next day a plumber came out to have a look at it. He stopped the leak by turning off the water to the tub as it needed a new faucet (glad we didn’t need a tub).

One afternoon we came back and there was water leaking from the front bay window and also a leak in the back door. We looked at the door and there was a crack in the glass. We emailed the owner to let him know; he said he knew about the front window but not the door. We were in the mountains where it was cool and wonderful – a great place to open the windows and enjoy the outside fresh air. So we did. Within minutes the house was full of flies and moths. After looking at the windows we realized that all of the screens didn’t fit the windows so all the critters were just crawling in around the edges. No worries – we closed the windows and starting swatting flies.

The house had a full kitchen that was well stocked. It was also well stocked with rodents as all the pots and bowls had mouse droppings in them. No big deal – I just washed them out and used them. However, there were also droppings inside the cabinet that could have been cleaned if the housekeeper had looked. I mention the above because on our way home – we left about 7:00 in the morning as we had a long drive and check out was at 9:00 AM – we got a call from the owner (about 9:10 AM) asking us what we had spilled all over his couch. I first questioned what he was talking about, then I realized that he was referring to the stain on the couch that was there when we got there. He said that his housekeeper said that it hadn’t been there the previous weekend, that it was definitely caused by us. He then hung up on me.

I first thought that we had lost cell, but looked and that wasn’t the case. I called him back, and there was no answer. I waited about an hour and called again and he answered. I tried to explain that we had not done that, why would we have notified him about other issues and then ruined his property. He said that he knew that we had done it, that his housekeeper was wonderful, and he was not going to report us. When I got the review survey for the property I wrote a good review for his place as it was a lovely setting, had beautiful scenery, and was definitely a great deal.

I also wrote a personal review to him pointing out the above issues that all could be easily fixed, and also to let him know that maybe his housekeeper is not as great as he thinks she is and that maybe he needs to make a surprise trip to visit his property. A week later I got an email from the host telling me that he could not believe the nasty review that I had written, that I had irreparably damaged his business, and saying what a horrible person I am. The public review literally said, “Great property, beautiful scenery!” How is that nasty?

I did contact Airbnb to verify that only the public review was visible to the public. I emailed and got a reply from them within 24 hours verifying that, and they were very helpful letting me know that anything that was sent straight to the host was not public. So I have no complaints about Airbnb. However – if you rent some place and notice problems – document them immediately and contact the host or management immediately. I have a feeling in this case that would not have helped us. I think the housekeeper didn’t catch this when it was done originally or did it herself, and I think the host is crazy and would have said that we walked in the house and immediately destroyed the couch. In the future I will be looking upon arrival.

Avoid Airbnb If Their Properties Are Like This

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We booked a condo in downtown Toronto through Airbnb. On arrival the condo was filthy; even though we were tired from traveling, I decided to clean it anyway. Not only was it filthy, the extra bedding was rolled up, stunk, and had been thrown in the cupboard. The blinds were broken and missing, the bed had cigarette burns on it, and to top it off the window was broken and would not close. We were on top of a bar, so we could not sleep. There was no toilet roll, no washing liquid, and no shower gel as was stated in the listing. There was also a door that could be accessed through the office downstairs to our condo.

We contacted the host by email from my son’s phone who lives in the area. The host had no interest at all and said he would send in a cleaner. He did not want to know about the other problems. The pillows also looked like a dog had urinated all over them; they were so bad. We vacated the property after a week since then getting in contact with Airbnb has been a nightmare. I sent all the photos in of the problems several times and telephoned nearly every day. The case got accidentally closed a few times and now they are saying I can’t have a week’s refund as I did not contact them within 24 hours. Our phones did not work in Canada. The host was contacted, so after all the calls, why did they not tell me that after the first phone call?

I will never use Airbnb again and will tell everyone I know not to use them. The host must be laughing being allowed to take people’s money like that.

Victim of Theft in Mexico Gets No Response From Airbnb

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I was very disappointed at how my hosts at Mexico City handled the situation after 700 USD was stolen from my suitcase while staying at their house. I thought that in a system based on trust as it is, it worked both ways. I trusted that they knew the person who was coming to clean my bedroom – a cleaning service which I had already paid for – and for whom they asked me to leave the door unlocked for her to clean up. I thought that they knew the people who they let into the house and that could be in contact with my belongings. They never offered me a safe place to leave my valuables, like a safe or a locker, nor did they warn me that they didn’t know the maid.

When I returned to my bedroom at that night, I found that I was missing more than half the money that I had brought with me. I asked them about the situation; I was very distressed, on the verge of tears. They passed off responsibility to the cleaning company, who obviously was not going to give me back anything. The hosts never accounted for what had happened in their house with their guest. I still had two more days there and I was scared for the rest of my belongings.

I left Mexico without a resolution, having received better attention at the time of reporting the crime to the authorities than that with my own hosts or the Airbnb call center. They never offered to give me back the money for my stay or give me any compensation, but they wanted to find someone to blame. Almost a month has passed and the Airbnb “resolution center” hasn’t given me any answer.

P.S. Their cat would also enter my bedroom at night (it couldn’t be locked from the inside) and pee on the floor…

Airbnb Subcontractors Promise More Than They Can Deliver

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Have you noticed there are some companies that will book your Airbnb property and guests for you? Steer clear: they help Airbnb by keeping you from getting paid and getting guests to rent a lousy place to stay. This comes from both ends of the spectrum – host hell and guest hell – where a third party is in the middle preventing either from reaching a resolution.

How it works: Airbnb is using start-up companies that only book with Airbnb, promising they will communicate with both hosts and guests, provide property maintenance, cleaning before and after each rental, let guests in (and secure the rental when they leave), help with any issues both hosts and guests have at any time of the day or night, collect any rental and damage fees, pay the hosts directly, and have a customer support line 24/7. I answered a local ad through Craigslist out of curiosity to apply as a “licensed cleaner” for Airbnb properties. After spending an hour or so clicking through a basic “do you know how to clean” on my computer, you are not given a background checked at all. You are signed up immediately and can take ‘tasks’ from your smart phone, including cleaning and stocking rentals. So first off, neither the host nor guest has any guarantee the rental will be damage free, clean and maintained. For someone like myself who is certified in the cleaning industry with over 20 years’ experience, state licensed and bonded, in one day I could tell this was a huge scam and mistake, but wanted to see what was up on how all this worked.

The first “claim job” day was a Sunday. There were three rentals that needed cleaning, clean bedding, and linens and a mini-stay pack (like hotels). Everything was sent to a storage unit. All jobs needed to be finished by 3:00 PM, so I got to the storage unit at 10:00 AM. I needed time to find what I needed since I’d never been to this storage place before which was in downtown Seattle, right off the most notorious intersection the city has. At least it was Sunday, so I had that going for me. Right off the bat, I couldn’t get into the unit from the code they gave me. I waited an hour and a half for someone to send me the proper information. This was after calling their “worker support line” which no one answered, and their customer support line, finding not one person knew I worked for them. So much for being listed as a cleaner – and I had full access codes to three properties. Eventually I got a single text and entered the storage unit, which was a mess: Cintas was supposed to be supplying linens but they were out of just about everything. It was disorganized, so I had to hunt to find enough supplies for three rentals.

I tried to find the first unit; the address was wrong and again, I spent almost an hour trying to get a response from anyone at this company. Then I found the unit and just about fell over: my son had rented an apartment right next to the building years before. He left because of two problems: there was a small fire station you couldn’t really see but hear go off at least every two hours round the clock, and crime was high in that area. I entered the unit which was a three story, two master bath, two bedroom plus skinny, and very trashed rental. They had a kid who loved peanut butter, which was stuck solid to the windows, walls, furniture, floors and all over the kitchen. The upstairs master bath didn’t drain at all, which is why the downstairs one was used so heavily.

This unit had been booked for a two-hour cleaning. It was already 1:00 PM when I arrived. Panic set in and I notified the company there was no way I could get all three properties finished in time. They assured me this wasn’t a problem so I set to work running up and down stairs, and unclogging drains. Thankfully I had brought my steam machine to get the peanut butter off everything. It took 3.5 hours to make everything clean and presentable. The company charged the guests an additional $300 for cleaning. This was exorbitant for an additional 1.5 hours more than they quoted, though the guests had been there a full month. I’m not sure what they expected but I am sure the guest and host both got screwed on that one.

Off to another property that had an address that did not exist on any map, and more calling the company to receive a text to find the property. I should mention in between these visits my phone kept going off from SMS messages received. They turned out to be from one of the company’s employees – the one giving me the proper information –  on who his pick was for the NFL super dream team. It couldn’t have been less professional.

Next was a 2700 square foot home in the older part of Seattle, which meant uneven climbing up zigzag steps where the cement was old and broken. The guests had arrived and the wife was furious. The place was trashed from a frat party on Friday night (the guests had to do a two-night minimum booking). I hauled all my cleaning stuff up, asked them where would be best to start (the bathroom, they wanted to shower), and got on it. I then moved to the kitchen where I found broken plates, glasses, a broken microwave plate, and no less than 27 empty bottles of liquor. The guests had a concert to attend so I was able to clean like mad without running into anyone but again, had to reach customer service to figure out where to put the duvet cover that had an entire bottle of cologne spilled on it. The entire upstairs smelled of this horrific men’s cologne and it was the host’s duvet cover. “Bag it and drop it off when you are done” is what I was told but no one would know to whom or where it belonged. I pinned a note to it, bagged it, and wrote the host’s address and last name on the bag.

Once that was finished at 8:00 PM, it was dark with no lighting to see the steps. I eventually tripped on the last one hitting the cement sidewalk. Still, I got up and headed off to the third rental. The week-long guests were compensated for three days and the host had to go over to the property to see the damage. It wasn’t fun for anyone and later I learned the guests were charged $1,200, with the host getting $200 after a month of fighting with Airbnb and the middleman company with which I signed up. I arrived at the third property greeted by some kids on skateboards who glared at me, circling my truck. I decided to take in all my cleaning stuff (Miele vacuum and steam cleaners are expensive).

This place was creepy and not well marked on how to access the basement rental as the top is the house with no lighting on either side indicating the “entrance in the back”. I walked through some bushes, a spider web, and some rocks and found the door. However, I couldn’t find the lock box for the key which had been buried under a planter, not beside the bench. It was pitch black and I was using a military grade flashlight. Still, it took half an hour to find the key. Luckily there was no one there as they were out for dinner and it was small, and not heavily used. I sighed in relief and went to work getting all the linens changed. I cleaned the entire unit and was almost done when the guests arrived. It was an awkward moment to say the least but I was very apologetic and polite. We struck up a conversation, I gave them additional towels (marked in my phone for reporting later to the company), bid them good night, and headed to the storage unit to drop off the dirty linens – which of course, was closed. I hauled them back home.

The next day they had one rental that needed an early clean and since I still had some clean linens, I headed to that home, arriving at 11:00 AM. The guests were from England and their flight didn’t leave for awhile so they were told not to worry, and they could check out before 1:00 PM. I was not notified of this and got a coffee, sent pictures from the day before to the main office of this middleman company, and also told them to get me off the SMS football list. That home was supposed to be two hours of cleaning and while the guests had done a great job of keeping it clean, it was just under 2500 square feet of brand new high-end home space: two stories with the entire downstairs hardwood, upstairs two master baths, four bedrooms. I took my time, disregarding the set pay for the number of bedrooms and bathrooms. Given how the company paid me, it worked out to under $8 an hour on each house.

Here is the kicker for hosts and guests: guests leave a 1-5 star rating on their stay, cleanliness, and amenities which is reported to Airbnb. Since all but one of four rentals was trashed in one way or another, and I was way behind due to the company not having all information handy, those ratings went against the host and some didn’t make it against the guests. Airbnb found a way to really screw over everyone by using a middleman booking company that does very little for the additional cost both hosts and guests pay for, up to 17% more per booking with a monthly cleaning cost of $500-$700 for each property no matter the size or bookings.

The really scary part for everyone else is I told this booking company I could not work for them in such a manner. I’m a professional and it costs money to pay my insurance, license, bond, gas, and cleaning supplies. So even after I told them “no, thank you”, they started emailing me bookings for other clients. I had all the information of the host, guest, payment type, link to both host and guest, plus access information. Because I was still curious, I didn’t tell Airbnb nor the booking company about this; I wanted to see how long it would take before they figured it out. After a week of getting booking notices to my email account for six days, I called Airbnb.

Airbnb had no one single person that I could talk to about the booking company or emails. I was put on hold until the line was dropped twice, transferred to nonexistent extensions, and muddled through why I was calling with agents who did not speak English as their first and possibly second language. Eventually I sent an email to every Airbnb address I could find along with a text and email to the booking company who by the way, were operating in Seattle from San Francisco with no one here at all from their office. In fact, I couldn’t find anyone who’d even been here before which explains the terrible access to things they want you to use for each rental.

About two hours after sending a text message to the booking company, someone called me back and apologized for “the mix up” though I had to let that person know that I wasn’t going to continue working for them. If you are wondering how I knew about the “Frat Party House” and how that shook out, it’s because the guests lived closer to me, hired me on a regular basis to clean their home, and told me what hell they’d been put through to prove the previous guests left such a mess… as if my pictures didn’t already show that? They were almost on the hook for the extra clean up and damage and only Airbnb would deal with them, not the booking company. Luckily I did two things: take a ton of pictures and use a stopwatch for the exact time which can be uploaded to show the date and time. Hopefully this will help some hosts and guests at the same time. I won’t be a part of it for the rest of my career.

Filthy Bed, Soiled Bed Linen = Airbnb Unfit for Use

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This was my first experience at using Airbnb for accommodation in Sydney, Australia near Elizabeth Bay because so many places were booked solid. This will probably be my last time too. The place looked cute in the pictures, but when I arrived it was completely unclean. It was an old 1960’s apartment that was tidy, but so dirty. I did know that I would have to make up the bed myself and was fine with this, but I was not expecting to have to clean the whole place before I used it.

The previous guests had left four bags of garbage, even though they could have disposed of them; there were plenty of bins in the street. They also had left their soiled bed linen and towels on a pile on the carpet. If I could have vacated and found another place I would have. There was thick dust on the TV and stand. The bathroom floor was dirty – and I mean really dirty. Under the basin there was dust and debris, used cotton buds, and hair pins.

The toilet was not sanitary. In the bowl were fecal stains and the deodoriser was empty and soiled. The shower base was cracked, crazed, and dirty. On top of the toilet cistern was sitting a huge gilded mirror with years of dust on the top and mould on the air vent. The carpet stank of dog – the hostess did not disclose in her ad that a dog lived on the premises – and was dirty and gritty.

The mini refrigerator was dirty. The ice box was completely frozen over with a piece of fish in a plastic sachet completely “cemented” into the ice. The ice trays were mouldy and there was half-eaten food still in the fridge. The stove elements and rings were encrusted with baked-on food.

Now for the worst.: the bed. The mattress had many large stains. It also stank of dog. The sheets were not fresh smelling nor clean. The quilt that I had to go searching for was ancient, stained, and torn. So was the cover, which was also flecked with red paint which matched the colour of one of her walls. When I contacted the hostess she asked me to please “excuse the holes and tears”. I was horrified to learn that she herself sleeps with the same quilt that she supplies to her guests.

The next morning I purchased my own quilt and sheets. The hostess agreed to reimbursing me for these, but never did. Underneath the sofa cushions were years of dust, crumbs, and debris. I doubt whether it had ever been vacuumed. I found the vacuum cleaner shoved in the totally messy wardrobe. I switched it on to clean the carpet then quickly switched it off because it stank of dog. I took it all apart and scrubbed every component. It was clogged with matted hair and all kinds of filth. The filters had never been washed or replaced. I spent six hours cleaning and trying to make the place livable.

The large black-out curtain was folded underneath a sofa. At nighttime I had to hang this curtain on nails on a pelment. The curtain had a terribly cheesy odour. No amount of eucalyptus spray that I purchased could eradicate the stench. The other window had no covering at all. Fortunately I brought an eye mask, otherwise I would have awoken at dawn with sunlight streaming through the window.

The hostess gave me all sorts of excuses: “the cleaners were away”; “the previous tenants must have left the place dirty.” She even said that the carpet (which I vacuumed three times because the barrel filled up) had been cleaned with an “industrial cleaner” only three days prior to my arrival. This was a total fabrication. The woman who lives here is not one who has tidy habits. Just one look at her cupboards and you would know. I suspect that she relies on the kindness of her guests to clean up after the last. When I vacated, no cleaning was required, except to replace the linens. No basic amenities like tea, coffee, sugar or milk were provided. Fortunately, I brought my own. I was expected to go rummaging around in her dirty pantry. No garbage bags or cleaning cloths were anywhere to be seen. The only things that were clean were the towels. All this for a place that charges similar to hotel rates.

The hostess said that “my expectations were more than most.” Is it too much to expect a clean bed? I don’t think so. This hostess makes no attempt whatsoever to provide a clean environment for herself or her guests. I wish I could show you the photographs. The most puzzling thing of all is that my review was the only negative one.

Anyway, my advice: there are plenty of other lovely places listed on Airbnb and much cheaper ones too. Some even in the same building. Here is the link to the dirty dump I stayed in.

Moldy Dirty Airbnb Montclair: Why Cleaning Fees?

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We were a group of seven adults trying to get up north for a close friend’s birthday and it didn’t turn as great as we wish it had. The first weird moment was when I got a text from the host telling me the hot tub was on, and if we were going to use it, it would cost $50 for utilities and a cleaning fee, when the hot tub had already been included in the listing. Who would want to jump in a hot tub outside in the Oakland/Montclair area in February while it’s pouring rain? We arrived there to find out that none of the “entrance doors” we going to be locked during our three-night stay. The host told us it was a really safe neighborhood and that he was a part of the “neighbor safety watch council.” We obviously had luggage as we had booked from Friday to Monday morning, so we were a bit skeptical by this news that had just fallen on us. After getting some of our belonging in the rooms, we noticed some of the beds were in fact only mattresses on the floor, which was different than those in the pictures on the listing. Some of the rooms had a really dusty/stuffy/moldy smell and it made it awkward to breathe, so we opened the windows a bit, even if it was pretty cold up there.

We all went out to the birthday boy’s dinner, to find out after coming back that the kitchen counter was not even clean. Why would they rent a dirty house to people? When adding some beverages to the fridge, we realized that the entire place was just dirty. Two of the rooms had a space heater, but the third one had nothing. The people staying in there were freezing during the night and tried to turn what seemed to be the “full house heater” on the next day, but the box didn’t even work. When it came time to take a shower, we realized that not only was there rust, the towels were falling apart, the rod used for the curtain was actually a metal pipe, and the bathtub was actually moldy all over. The listing showed a $75 cleaning fee. I’m not sure who is enjoying that charge, but definitely no one who ever touched a sponge, scrubber or any cleaning detergents.

The house all around was really mismatched and decorated in a really weird way, but what was shocking is the fact that only a homemade sliding door was separating our “entire place” booking and where the host lived with his girlfriend. If the door was closed and locked all the time, it would have been ok, but in our case, we found that door wide open every morning, after a few of us had already left. The host might have thought it was cool to just go around during our “rental time” without letting us know. He could have at least warned us. Also, please read the “Hot Tub Rules” that were listed on the side of the dirty fridge, and tell me if you believe this is okay to ask your guest to be completely naked to use the jacuzzi. There is so much more I could say about our stay, but I’ll just share the few pictures I took of that place that should not be on Airbnb before getting cleaned and updated.

I requested a part of our booking fee back from all the people who rented that place with me and didn’t get any answer. I believe that rust, mold and unlocked entrances at all times should not be a part of the Airbnb policy. The nonexistent customer service pretty much tells people like us, to resolve the issue with the host and would get involved only at the crucial part. I feel like it is a great business for them as they are charging quite a bit extra to the guest and take a nice part of what the host makes as well, just for the access to their website. For all the money they are taking away, I wish they would support whoever goes through that kind of experience a little better. Hopefully someone will get back to us and at least get us the cleaning fee and Airbnb fees back.

Airbnb Guest Invites Strangers, Trashes House

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A guest booked 12 people for two nights. I asked them to read our house description and rules and pay attention to our quiet time (10:30 PM) being announced there. The first night they were up and loud till 3:00 AM. I texted them and my messages were ignored. The second night they were up and screaming until 2:00 AM. After my messages were ignored, I went to their door to see what was their problem. First they didn’t open the door, then finally they let me in and I saw there were 16 people drunk and loud. I asked for the person who booked the property and he was not there. I called Airbnb, reporting there were four extra unpaid guests on our property, the person who booked is not among them, and they are so loud past our quiet time that he agreed to through the Airbnb reservation system; the trace of the message is there.

Airbnb did absolutely nothing. The guests were screaming after that until 4:30 AM and this lengthy phone call with Airbnb was just a waste of time. The guests left us furniture damage that Airbnb didn’t resolve through the resolution centre, as the guests lied and denied everything. Instead Airbnb closed my account, cancelled my upcoming reservations, and said my review of the guests qualified as racism. In reality the review had nothing to do with the guest’s ethnicity or nationality at all. My case was so unfair and poorly handled. The Airbnb founder, Bryan Chesky, who talks about trust and safety doesn’t realize that he himself abused the trust of his landlord at some time to sublet it to others as a short term and has no idea what trust is. It’s no wonder in my own case I don’t see any trace of trust or safety at all. Airbnb is his true child – like father like son.

Airbnb Nightmare in Tokyo: Hotel was Necessary

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We booked a place in Tokyo only to arrive after 4:00 PM to a dirty room with soiled sheets, pubes all over the bathroom, scum on all the mirrors, dirty glasses and stovetop, and reversed sheets to try and hide the stains. We couldn’t stay there. We tried to contact hosts as we were tired and just wanted to shower and rest but didn’t receive any replies. We had to find a hotel. We found a reasonably affordable one, a little more expensive than the Airbnb but we weren’t going to look or travel far as we had already had enough. Finally, the hosts contacted us after a few hours when we were already in a hotel, saying they were sorry: the place had been cleaned but the quality was not so good. They didn’t check. After a while they offered a refund, minus the cleaning fee. They had to be kidding. There was no offer to cover the extra expense of our simple hotel costs. I’m hoping Airbnb can help us out?