Showed up to apartment, was told it’s not available

Posted on October 3, 2019

My first and last Airbnb experience. I reserved an apartment for 30 days. Heard nothing from the host. I contacted him and he told me to pick up the keys at the desk when I arrived.

I showed up, the hotel management said there were no keys for me. They called the host who had forgotten to make the reservation and they told me to try again some other time. I dragged my suitcase through the streets of Bogota, Colombia at night looking for another place to stay. I contacted Airbnb and they refused to honor their refund policy.

Sure some people have had good experiences and maybe I just had bad luck. But ask yourself: do you really want your travel plans hooked up to a wheel-of-chance? Do you want to arrive and find you have no place to say and you’re out all the money you spent? Do yourself a favor: pay the extra 25-30% to stay in a real hotel where they do guest lodging as a profession. Don’t chance it on some random idiot. They guy had all five-star reviews so you can’t count on that either.

Major Fire Hazard at Airbnb Property in Medellin

Posted on August 13, 2019

There were major safety issues at an Airbnb-listed property. I was unable to leave a review of my last stay; the link sent me to a page that said I didn’t have access.

This “furnished studio” was actually a windowless (air vents onto a dirty courtyard, no natural light) single room with a double bed and a bar stool as furniture, linked by a corridor to a kitchenette and a bathroom with no hot water in sinks, but decent hot water from electric shower head. There was no microwave, no toaster oven, no coffeemaker or kettle, two very old pots and barely any dishes, and no dustbins except one in the bathroom for leaving used toilet paper.

The building in Laureles, Medellin is, like many buildings without doormen, locked from the inside and out. You need a key to leave. This one has two outer locks. The one on the outer gate hardly works; it takes five minutes of jiggling the key to open it. The lock on the front door of the building is slightly better.

The reason this is so dangerous – beyond the fact the exits should never be locked – is that the burner of the gas stove in the kitchen is very damaged and eight-inch flames shoot out when you try to use it. It is a miracle there has not been a fire in the building.

The building is old, the rooms are tiny, the hallways and the apartments themselves are dirty (I looked in to a neighboring one). The “Super Precio” of about $500 US/month is not a great deal in Colombia. Someone should do some sort of spot checking on the properties, most of all for safety issues.

Thrown Off Airbnb After 6 Years, 728 stays, and 400 Five-Star Reviews

Posted on March 2, 2017

After six years it saddens me to say we were thrown off Airbnb without even a phone call -just a email and all future bookings refunded to the guests. We were erased like we never even existed. They say we broke the rules of not allowing four single men to rent our two bedroom with just two beds. After a phone call they said they planned to have girls over, which would have brought the total to eight people in my two bedroom. I am not anti-gay or anti-lesbian. We just had a great gay couple weeks prior to this and none of this matters to me. What matters to me is fitting double the occupancy for my apartment. When you have this many people coming through our place you’re bound to have a few arguments with people. I’m not saying we are angels; we have had to straighten out some people trying to damage our property.

Here in Medellin, Colombia things can crazy with our renters partying too hard. On top of all this, in September Airbnb renters had a underage girl in our apartment. Someone called the police and they came at 1:00 AM. The renters were rude to the police. They found the girl and kicked all of them out and then sealed our building. It took two weeks and $8,000 to remedy. To this, Airbnb said they were sorry. No financial help. No million dollar policy they claim in ads is available to help. We were left with the bill. We swallowed hard, paid it, and opened back up. Now we have been removed? It’s the silliest thing I ever heard. We have done nothing wrong accept say no to a booking which included four men and four more on the way to stay there. Above is a picture of the guy opening the door to a slew of police. Six years and many happy clients are gone in a blink of a eye. Try to talk to Airbnb about it: you can’t. They are the Microsoft of the industry and we will hurt because of it.