Tag Archives: airbnb crazy host

Three Days of Pure Harassment over a Simple Misunderstanding

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We arrived at our Airbnb today after 3:00 PM to check in. I walked in the backyard and found a pair of shoes — I didn’t know they were expensive, tried them on, and bought them back into the house. My son and I went out to dinner and when we came back we’re accused by host of stealing them. She stated they were her daughters and expensive and now she can’t return them and called the cops on me. I was horrified; I took them into the house to protect them. I didn’t text the host because I didn’t think it was my job to find out who these shoes belonged to. I offered to pay for them but they started to say nasty things to me again with the police there so I said we should wait until tomorrow.

I’m here with my family and we have nowhere to go. Everything is booked and there are no available rooms. The host broke into the house to get these shoes without my permission. I even called my husband during this and he stated what if I found a frisbee or a bottle of wine? How am I supposed to know? I didn’t harm or use anything. Just took them into the house. I want to feel safe here and not be pressured to buy these shoes.

The next two days were pure harassment. She called the cops on us for the next two days to force us to buy the shoes. It was a complete waste of time for the police and for my family. The host continued to watch the cameras on the home to see when we would come back from an activity. As soon as we arrived back at the home the cops would arrive 15 minutes later. The host also yelled profanities from the street to the house in the sunroom when we were putting sunblock on. My son took video of that interaction and we sent it to Airbnb.

Since this story has been uploaded to the platform, the matter has been handled by Airbnb and I was given a full refund and the host has been banned. You are not allowed to break into someone else’s space unless it is an absolute emergency. I want to thank Airbnb for handling this matter in a timely, professional way, listening to the guest’s side, and not thinking of the money made from the host.

When the host found out she was going to be banned, and the police said I was not going to be charged, she started yelling at Airbnb and the police. If any items are left in a shared space contracted by an Airbnb guest it is not the responsibility of the guest to secure the items.

Hosts Can Cancel up to 48 Hours Prior to your Reservation

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I booked an Airbnb in Montana on July 10, 2020 for my son’s wedding for the following year on July 10, 2021. It’s a big home with four bedrooms, four beds and three baths, sleeps 10 plus room enough for two RVs in the driveway. After establishing right away that the RV spaces did not have electricity availability, I booked the reservation.

Almost a year went by, but when I contacted the host to see how big her driveway is because we have a huge 45-foot diesel pusher RV that we just needed to park there and not actually stay in while we were there, she freaked out and said the HOA had changed the rules since she did not have a dedicated RV pad; she no longer could have RVs in her driveway. I quickly looked up the ad she had running for future bookings, and she still advertised RV availability in two different places.

This was strange, but I messaged her back and said that it was okay, we could easily store our RV somewhere else but that I still needed the reservation because the wedding was three weeks away and I had family coming in to stay with me and there were no hotel rooms available. She said she was concerned that I would still bring my RV because she had no way of verifying that I would not bring it even though I assured her I had other options to store it elsewhere. I even proposed she contact someone in town to do a drive by to verify there was no RV there during our stay.

Well, she promptly told me she had already cancelled my reservation and that there was nothing I could do about it because she has the right to cancel for whatever reason if she feels her home would be in jeopardy. Now, my original price for her home was around $250 per night for five nights which came to roughly $2,000, which was affordable for me. When I looked for a replacement home, the three homes left were approximately $1,100 per night, $1,600 per night and $2,200 per night.

I quickly booked the home for $1,100 per night which made my cost go from $2,000 to almost $7,000 for five nights. But what was I supposed to do? It’s my son’s wedding and I was responsible for housing the people coming to the wedding. When I messaged Evelyn to say it was completely unfair to cancel my reservation, her response was, “You have an RV” and in another response she indicated that we could all fit in my RV and so she saw no reason for my panic.

Panicked didn’t even cover the half of it. She completely destroyed my savings. I did everything right and booked a year in advance so I wouldn’t have to worry about housing for the wedding, and now she has placed me in financial difficulties and extreme emotional distress. I did what everyone in this situation would do; I contacted Airbnb customer support.

I spoke with four or five different support people, each time telling my story and each time they gave me different answers. One even said it wasn’t the RV issue, that the host double booked the home for that time period and made approximately $100 per night more, which only came out to her making about $500 more; however, it cost me $5,000 more to have to book a more expensive home. Support said it was also their “policy” (that they couldn’t show me anywhere on their site) that a host can cancel up to 48 hours prior to your reservation for any reason.

Their reason is that within 48 hours it’s too hard to book another home, but prior to that you are responsible for booking your own replacement home, even if the host lied as she did in my case. She still advertises RV spaces in her driveway so I just have to assume she lied to me and just wanted an out to make more money on a new booking. To tell me that it’s all okay because we can all just cram into my RV for the wedding?

Support also told me that in order for them to help me, I had to go ahead and book the replacement home and then it would go on their books and they could see that replacement home in order to help me out. Once I booked the replacement home, the next support person said that I booked the replacement home when I should have let them handle it and there was nothing they could do for me because I already booked the replacement home. How confusing is that? I did exactly what they said to do only to have them say I did the wrong thing. This is their job and they are supposed to give me, their client, the right information on how to deal with these types of situations.

When I asked support to look over the whole messaging between the host and myself, I asked them what I did wrong and what they would have done differently if they were in my shoes. Each time the support person said I did everything right and that it was just an unfortunate situation. Yeah, a $5,000 unfortunate situation for me that put me into complete hell with panic attacks and migraines nightly right before my son’s wedding.

What exactly is the punishment for a host canceling the reservation with little time left to rebook on the guest’s part? I was told the host gets fined $100 and gets a bad mark on their file for two weeks. If they don’t abuse another guest then it comes off after that time. In my case, the host lied to me (or lied to Airbnb) and the support person told me that the bad mark had already been removed after a few days.

I am now pursuing arbitration against Airbnb and a small claims court action against the host. Any advice anyone can give me will be greatly appreciated. I am a single mom and stage three cancer survivor who is not going to let this go as I did nothing wrong.

Airbnb Host Refuses to Believe Her Property Has Spiders

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I thought I would share a recent Airbnb story which has made me decide I will never use the app again. My partner and I booked into a lovely place recently that was part of a series of different units. It had great reviews and was set in a beautiful setting.

When we arrived the place was well set-up and clean. The only issue was that there were quite a lot of cobwebs around, particularly around the windows and furniture —like a lot. My partner dutifully picked up the broom and began cleaning the place of cobwebs. Other than that, our stay was very enjoyable. We didn’t think it was a big deal to clean them up; we figured they may just have been missed in cleaning since properties are just opening up again after COVID-19 lockdowns.

After our stay we made sure that the place was clean and tidy and left a very positive public review on Airbnb. We received positive public feedback from our host who said we were wonderful and clean and would be happy to have us back. We did make use of the private feedback option, and just noted that there were a lot of cobwebs around appliances, corners, furniture, light fixtures and windows. We chose not to say this publicly because we really liked the place and just wanted to support them for the future.

Fast forward a few weeks later and we stayed again but in a different unit. Again, lovely place and looked clean, well-set up and beautifully designed, I actually liked this unit better than the first one. But there were cobwebs everywhere again. This time, however, there were also lots of spiders. I don’t mean just a couple of them or little ones. I mean big black nasty ones. I think we killed over 30 and they kept coming out of places. We cleaned up the cobwebs and kept trying to kill the spiders, but when they began dropping from the ceiling through cracks we just couldn’t manage it.

In the middle of dinner, we messaged our host saying we were having issues. The host turned up with their partner, and immediately accused us of lying. They said our private feedback about the cobwebs was a lie (it wasn’t) and accused us of lying again about the spiders and cobwebs in this place. At this point my partner got heated up and they began arguing and he showed her all the cobwebs we still hadn’t cleaned as well as all the spiders we had killed.

She continued to accuse us of lying and then began to say that we just weren’t the right people for the property. Multiple times we said we wouldn’t lie about something like this especially at 8:00 PM where we have nowhere else to go, and that we had used up two cans of spider spray already trying to kill them. She kept referring back to the private feedback and even printed it out to show us and say we were lying about cleaning up the cobwebs in the first place. She also kept saying that since no one else ever had a problem we must surely be lying.

We were so confounded. If she was that upset about private feedback why the hell would she book us again? Luckily her partner was very kind and wanted to help us, and enabled us to move to the property we first stayed in which was clean and spider free. The host, however, made it clear she didn’t want us there at all and I assume would have rather we left altogether. She ended up leaving the property and slamming the door behind her, and it was her partner who helped us out.

Our mistake? I’m guessing we should have taken photos rather than clean it up ourselves both times. We cleaned it up the first time because we figured it wasn’t a big deal to do so, but just left feedback about it. We should have also not cleaned the property at all the second time, and instead taken photos and messaged the host first and showed her where all the spiders and cobwebs were. We made the mistake both times of not taking photos. In our naivety, we didn’t realize how important that would be.

As a result, we haven’t made a report to Airbnb because we just don’t have any evidence at this stage, and just wanted to get out of there as soon as possible. I am just in shock by her behavior. We weren’t trying to cause trouble. We genuinely loved the place apart from this issue (who wants to sleep with spiders dropping on their head?), and our first public review of the place was overwhelmingly positive.

After this experience I won’t go near Airbnb. Hosts have way too much power, and I just couldn’t believe how she was yelling at us and accusing of us of lying. It was unbelievable.

Airbnb Nightmare you Wouldn’t Wish on Anyone

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We booked three weeks with what on first meeting appeared to be a friendly South African immigrant couple in Allandale, Governors Bay in New Zealand. When we arrived, we were disappointed to see that the kitchen and bathroom were filthy, and the mattress badly stained. For $83 a night, it should have at least been clean.

While I was out for a drive the next day, I was told by one of their neighbours that the hosts are illegally subletting the downstairs unit without the owners’ permission and expressed concerns for anyone staying with this couple. They didn’t go into detail. That was our first warning.

Within 48 hours, one of the hosts had entered our downstairs unit twice without our permission while we were out. Despite us telling them we were on a working holiday and needed a secure space in which to lock away my husband’s laptop and work files, they told us they wouldn’t be locking the upstairs area they rented (which had internal access to our unit), so our possessions were not safe while we were out.

She then made numerous demands for us to mind and socialise her unruly and poorly trained 50-kg dog, and feed her chickens, none of which we should have to do in an Airbnb but we complied with everything the host asked for out of the kindness of our heart.

Our petite dog was hurt by her dog two days in a row while they were out and so we placed her in a kennel to keep her safe. The host gave us no peace from one day to the next. She repeatedly trapped my husband on the way to and from his car to make conversation when her husband was not around.

When on the third day I explained to her that my husband works 40-50 hours a week, that we were exhausted, and I asked her for much needed space and privacy, she became repeatedly vindictive. She started sending texts to us via the Airbnb site making false allegations with an attempt to have us kicked out and lose our payment for the two remaining weeks.

She then involved her husband and together they constantly harassed us until we no longer felt safe and went to stay elsewhere for three days for some peace and quiet. Numerous calls and texts followed from them both.

We told them that we were leaving and that we would be back to collect our belongings. Her husband then told us we were not permitted to return to retrieve our belongs and threatened us. We had no choice but to call the police, who came to the property and kept them away from us while we gathered our things to leave.

We would never recommend anyone stay here. It was exhausting and we felt very unsafe with this couple living above us, and are very relieved to have made it out of there in one piece.

Birthday at New York Airbnb Gone Wrong

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I got about five friends together for my birthday at a park in upstate New York, then it started raining. I found an Airbnb that seemed large enough for my friends and since none of us were from the town we just wanted a place to chill and wait out the rain for an hour or two. For $125 it was fine.

We arrived and brought up our coolers. Not even five minutes after we arrived, we got a knock on the door and this tall man counted us out. There were six of us and I said six on the reservation. He left and was very rude.

Then about ten minutes after that I got a call from Airbnb saying I was breaking the rules with having too many people and having alcohol in the apartment. We were all obviously over 21 and there was no rule against having alcohol.

At this point I was very annoyed. Luckily I had “I Love Lucy” on DVD and brought that into the room. We were all on the couch watching it. We didn’t even finish an episode when we got another knock on the door with a different woman bursting into the room, and saying that we unplugged their camera in the living room.

Now we knew we were being filmed in the apartment and decided to leave within 45 minutes. I’m starting to think they did it on purpose to take my money and get us out asap.

Harassed after a Stay at an Airbnb Hostel

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My first experience was so bad and eye opening that I refuse to use Airbnb again. I was heading to Toronto for a wedding and needed a room for the night. I knew I’d just need a place to sleep so I found an inexpensive room. I can’t remember what I paid, but it was around $45.

The way it was written, it sounded like it was an in-law suite. I figured they probably meant it was just a single room with a shared kitchen but the description was badly written.

When I pulled up, it was one of the largest houses I’d ever seen. I knocked and several Chinese people answered the door. I’m an ESL teacher specializing in Chinese education and it’s Toronto; I wasn’t put off by this… until I found out none of them were the owner. They said I needed to call the host and they gave me his number.

He appeared a minute or two after I called. He started giving me a tour, asking what room I’d like. I noticed very quickly there were like ten people living here and room for probably twenty – all Chinese. He appeared to be running a hostel. As he was giving me the tour, it was clear he had no idea why I was there. I explained again that I was there for Airbnb.

“Oh!” He says. Gone goes the offer of big rooms upstairs. He led me to a small room in the basement. It was relatively clean, just a little dingy. I got ready and then left for the wedding. When I got home after midnight, the residents were in the kitchen and super loud. I debated just abandoning it and driving home at 2:00 AM tired, but didn’t.

I got home and the host starting texting asking I leave a review. He left me a nice review; I didn’t return the favor. I left an unfavorable review explaining it was a hostel with loud residents and a host who doesn’t know who is coming and going.

He then proceeded to text my personal phone, harassing me about it, saying I was an idiot for thinking I would get an in-law suite for that price; I should have known there would be other people, etc. At this point I blocked him and contacted Airbnb. He was apparently “talked to”, and I was told to block him. No offer of compensation, which is fine because I said outright I wouldn’t be returning.

Airbnb Host has not been Responsive and Lied in Reviews

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I usually have pretty decent luck with Airbnb but not this time. As guests, we understand that things and issues can happen all the time. When things happen, hosts should respond promptly and try to resolve the issue as best they can. However, this is not what we’ve experienced; our host is not helpful and ignoring us when we seek solutions, even if the damaged amenity is the bedding.

In short, this is what happened. We found the air mattress at our Airbnb damaged so we notified the host immediately for a solution because we wanted to sleep comfortably on something, not on the hard floor during winter.  The host acknowledged the issue, then ignored us.

We contacted Airbnb customer service regarding this issue, the host being very unresponsive when we, the guests, were trying to communicate. The issue turned into a claim and guests are eligible to request a refund from the host. Our host was not happy about the settlement of the claim and wrote a crazy review accusing us.

In a more detailed fashion, this is what happened. We booked this Airbnb for our ski trip. Although it is a studio, the listing said it can fit six people. We were a group of five so we thought it would be fine. Users on Airbnb might notice that the housing price varies by the dateby a lot; the place usually is around $170ish per night and due to the holiday season, we paid almost $500/night.

The night when we arrived at the studio, we found out there was a hole in the air mattress and immediately notified the host to see if there was any way she could fix it. The host replied: “Oh no! There’s a leak in the air mattress? I’m so sorry I don’t have another. How else can I fix this?” We were very surprised that the host was not aware of the damage to the air mattress.

Most hosts check the key amenities after the previous guests check out and before new guests check in. There are also dishes in the dishwasher that we were not sure were clean or dirty from the previous guests. I guess she didn’t check carefully before we arrived. We were also surprised that she didn’t have a spare air mattress and was asking the guests for a solution. We were already pretty tired from skiing all day and really needed comfortable sleep to recover.

We then messaged her: “I guess we need to figure out ourselves how to squeeze five people in one bed and sofa? We are also going to stay tomorrow night. Anyway, can you fix it tomorrow so everyone can have a comfortable sleep?” The host didn’t reply to us the entire night, and the last message we sent her was only around 9:00 PM.

This is the first time we experienced this. Our past Airbnb hosts have all been very responsive and able to fix issues very quickly. We weren’t sure if she was going to help us to resolve the issue so we reached out to Airbnb customer service about the situation with a picture of the hole in the mattress. They provided us with a couple options but none that could help us the first night. We squeezed three people in one bed and two people on the sofa. It was really really uncomfortable. Customer service also mentioned they were going to reach out to the host regarding this matter.

Finally, the host replied to us the second morning saying she was really sorry about the air mattress and she had another mattress at another rental she could bring over around noon - 1:00 PM. I then gave my friend’s contact information to her since she would be staying at the Airbnb the entire day and the rest of us would be out.

Around 5:00 PM we went back to Airbnb and my friend told me the host hadn’t showed up yet. I then checked my message inbox and ddn’t see anything about rescheduling the time or a delay. A couple minutes later, I got her message saying she would be there in 30 minutes. About an hour later, she still hadn’t show up. I messaged her asking when she would be there and she replied: “On my way up.”

About five minutes later, she finally showed up with air mattress. Because of the lateness, I thought she lived pretty far from there and it took time for her to get to our place because of the snow. I asked her: do you live in town? She pointed at a house right outside the window saying: I live right there. I was pretty shocked at that moment . Why did she ignore us the first night and take so long to get our place if she lives next door?

Another issue came up when the host was trying to set up the air mattress for us and she realized that she didn’t have the air pump; we couldn’t use it. She then went back to her place and found a cot and asking us if that was okay. I said yes because it was better than nothing.

I also want to note  the sofa bed and cot were not comfortable at all; we kept rolling and sinking to the center since none of them have support from the bottom. The only comfortable bedding is the bed. I talked with Airbnb customer service again regarding the second night situation updates and they suggested I initiate a conversation with the host to request a refund regarding our first night’s experience. They can start there once I’ve initiated the conversation.

Based on Airbnb’s refund policy,  if key amenities are missing or damaged, the guest is eligible for the refund from the host. We then sent the host a request for a possible refund due to missing/damaged amenities. Of course the host didn’t reply to us at all so we had to reach out to customer service again. Reaching out to Airbnb customer service is a very painful experience; once your claim gets assigned to a case manager, you can only work with them on your case. There is no way you can directly contact them. The only way is to write an in-app message and hope they see it and get back to you.

My experience of getting a response from a case manager on this case has never been shorter than one day. After a couple days of waiting and calling the Airbnb customer service number to ask them leave a note to my case manager for an update, my case manager finally got back to me, saying that he was unable to reach out to the host and they want to talk to the host in order to make a fair assessment about the claim.

Two more days later, and my case manager said he was able to speak with my host and sent me this message : “The host was a bit surprised about my request, and she also mentioned that there were scratches on the pots/pans.” The host probably thought that she could not get away from the refund so she started making things up.

First of all, based on Airbnb’s refund policy ,  if key amenities are missing or damage during our stay, guests are eligible to request a refund. She shouldn’t be surprised at all because we were missing one bed on our first night’s stay. Second, the scratches on the pots and pans were already there when we got there. It is ridiculous to claim they were made by us.

I asked Airbnb customer service if she wanted to report the scratches on the pots and pans against us, she should provide before and after pictures with a timestamp matching our stay (we were pretty sure such photos didn’t exists because they weren’t made by us). After more waiting, an Airbnb case manager replied that they haven’t heard anything back from the host in regards to the pot/pan scratches and were able to settle my claim about the damage amenities.

The settlement result was we received a refund of our first night’s stay. A couple hours after I got the news from the case manager that the claim was settled, the host left this crazy review accusing us of everything. She didn’t respond to customer service in a timely manner but she wrote bad reviews promptly. She just relentlessly made things up… such a crazy and ridiculous host.

In the review she wrote we:

  • Trashed her place. The fact she rented it out to another group right after we left probably meant we didn’t trash it enough.
  • Abused her kindness. Hmmmm, if lying and slow replies are considered kindness then I think we did abuse it.
  • We lied about our dog being potty trained, if our dog pooping outside is considered as lying about potty training. We didn’t even talk to her about anything in regards to dog potty training because our dog was well trained a couple years ago.
  • We filed a complaint against her because we didn’t know how to use the pull-out bed. I need to be honest about this one; we didn’t know how to use the pull-out sofa when we first arrived, but that was not the reason we filed a complaint against her. Though the pull-out sofa was very uncomfortable, the claim was about the air mattress leaking (damage/missing amenities). We were unable to sleep on it.
  • I think she forgot to mention about the scratches on the pots/pans which she mentioned to customer service. I think she needs to add that to the review just to keep her lie consistent.

The Dark Side of Airbnb for Female Travelers

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We are a group of backpackers who have stayed in many Airbnbs. In all our stays, we had pleasant and safe experiences apart from our most recent stay which was awful beyond words. Our stay at an Airbnb in Kalpakkam opened our eyes to the dark side of Airbnb and safety.

We had to encounter probably one of the most horrible experiences of our lives by staying at this place. We encountered a host who abused, insulted and shouted at us. It’s only now that I am reading the reviews of this property and I can see the abuses hurled at by the host even while answering. It was a grave mistake that we did not really read the reviews properly while booking.

On January 3rd, we had a long, tiresome journey from Pondicherry to reach this place at Kalpakkam, near Mahabalipuram. When we came to this Airbnb we were quite upset to see that the beach beside the property was littered with garbage and local people in the area openly defecating in the beachfront. In addition, the rooms were not really tidy. The air conditioning in one room did not cool properly and the toilet in one bathroom had no flush. To be fair it is mentioned in the property description that the flush was broken and would be fixed after January 2nd (we arrived at the property on the 3rd and we had booked this place two months in advance).

After we arrived, we called the host to inform him out of courtesy that we had arrived and we were facing some issues regarding the AC and also mentioned that the flush was broken (yes, it is mentioned in the property listing but it also says that it would be resolved on the 2nd). There was no confrontation from our part and we casually happened to speak with the host about the issue. Immediately the host got furious and asked us to cancel the reservation.

The property is in the middle of nowhere and we had girls in the group. Obviously we couldn’t cancel and find alternative accommodations when it was already dusk. Within ten minutes or so, the host turned up with his mother at the place and started shouting and abusing the girls. We were unable to comprehend why would a normal person behave this way, unless the person is not really sane.

Apparently the host was quite upset because he has “sentiments attached with his home” and that we dared to complain about. However what remains inexplicable is the reason the host would shout at us, abuse us, and ask us to cancel the reservation when it was quite apparent that the location is remote, there are several girls in the group, and it was almost dark.

The host used insulting statements like “Why [would] Airbnb send such characters?”, “Get out of my house”, and “Who are you?” When we said we were not going to leave without talking to Airbnb, he shouted “Airbnb is nobody. This is my property – Airbnb cannot stop me” again and again.

This entire experience made us feel utterly unsafe and stressed. The most unfortunate thing is the fact that our female friends had to suffer such abuse. In a civilized society, no gentlemen would ever assault women, but this vile creature of poor manners is not man enough for civility.

One of our members had a nervous breakdown because of this episode. We are not used to abuse and altercations and we have unfortunately not taken any lessons on how to handle an adult who would bully and shout at you for no apparent reason.

Furthermore, the host said that he only wants “local people” to stay at his place. Apparently we are neither Tamil nor South Indians; he was implying that he does not want people from other parts of India. This was most insulting, humiliating and the highest form of discriminatory abuse. We were so stressed and traumatized that we could not sleep that night.

Apart from such an awful host, there was a group of boisterous local guys in the next house in the same property (probably belonging to the same owner). They were making catcalls, hooting and flashing lights at the girls of our group. It was an isolated place and naturally we were terrified for safety reasons.

To sum up, our New Year party trip was ruined by an unmannerly and unstable host who abused us and we had to endure these insults since we were trapped because of the location. I was constantly reminded of this quote by Gandhi throughout the frightening encounter: “I will not let anyone walk through my mind with their dirty feet.” But alas, since I am no Gandhi I cannot forgive or forget this horrible episode.

Though we had booked this miserably grotesque place for two nights we left the next day in the morning as apparently we had an appalling stay and felt extremely unsafe and violated. This property is in the filthiest of places with an evil-mouthed, pathologically-egocentric and abusive host.

Airbnb has been requested multiple times to delist this property for the safety of guests. I am waiting for Airbnb to take appropriate actions. We managed to take a small video of the episode. Since we were not smart enough to take the video initially we missed the most insulting parts. But still, this video will give you an idea on how unsafe Airbnb is, especially for women.

Airbnb Host Opens Claim After Claim

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An Airbnb host has opened several claims against me. All cases have been ruled in my favor but he keeps opening others. The first was for asking me to pay additional fees including utilities when they weren’t in the listing. I had paid $460 without valid bills.

Forty days after check out, he asked for more. I refused because he refused to give me valid documentation for the bills. He opened a damage claim on day 55 saying I damaged the coffee table. I had images and videos of me checking in and out. Airbnb closed it and then refunded me for the utilities.

He then today opened a damage claim to replace the stove for $600. He didn’t say what was damaged. I sent images and videos of the stove upon check out in clean and working condition. I think what he is trying to do is that I told him that I didn’t think his cleaning person did a good job or that he never changed his drip pans. I bought new ones for him for $13.

I don’t know what to do and it is causing me stress. He also kept showing up to the property like a stalker because 60 days after check out he keeps contacting me for more money. I’m not sure what to do and I hope Airbnb will once again rule in my favor. I sent them everything on all of the other cases but they keep letting him open cases.

Even when I was there he said I might see him like ten times a day to check on things and I asked him to text me to let me know so I will be aware someone is coming into the property. This has caused me stress and depression that even after checking out 60 days ago I have to keep dealing with this.

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Host Tries to Claim an Extra $1500 with Fake Photos

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A group of friends and I were delighted to find a listing that had private rooms and bathrooms for each of us in Hong Kong. We booked way in advance before the protests started, and the entire listing was over $1300. Later, as the protests got more intense, that particular area became quite the hotspot. I saw videos online of bricks being torn up to create roadblocks, of police tear gassing protesters – all within a block of the Airbnb.

I contacted the host to see if we could cancel and got our first lie in response – that the Airbnb was ‘far from the protests.’ She said we could cancel but we’d lose half of what we’d paid. $600+ is nothing to sneeze at, so we reluctantly decided to risk it. Luckily, the situation calmed down.

Upon arrival, it was clear she was lying. The sidewalk in front of the Airbnb was cemented over because, though it wasn’t featured in the videos, it had been torn up during protests. That was no big deal compared to the actual Airbnb itself and her later behavior.

We checked in, and all the rooms except one (the one heavily featured on the listing) were much smaller. The photos, on closer inspection, had been taken with a fisheye lens to make them look bigger. The size we could live with. The smell and grime we could not. The place smelled of musty mildew and that smell never went away.

The bathrooms were also tiny, having the shower placed pretty much above the toilet. Again – this wouldn’t be that bad if it weren’t dirty. One toilet was so close to the wall you couldn’t sit without your knees touching the wall. The person in that room gave up after a night and got a hotel room for the rest of his stay. The rest of us endured but also got hotel rooms for two nights.

We were not aware that we could have complained to Airbnb and gotten alternative lodgings. I had never encountered such a situation before, having had positive experiences, so we assumed that if we were to back out we would be out of $1300. Now I know better.

After the stay, I submitted my review, and after discussing it with my fellow travelers, got over my dislike of confrontation to ask the host for a refund. She offered to refund just the cleaning fee of $60. I then submitted a formal request for a refund via the resolution center, and this is where it gets crazy.

She claimed the place had been professionally cleaned (please look at the photos and tell me if you think that counts as professional cleaning) and threatened to report me to the police and said she would be charging me for damage. What damage? She sent me a request for an additional $1500 for stained white sheets, complete with photos. The photos were fake. We had taken a video before we left that clearly showed the sheets provided to us in completely different colors and patterns.

I refused to pay this, of course, and this was the final straw that made me escalate to Airbnb support, who – to their credit – gave me a 50% refund. The host sent me one last message before I blocked her, saying she’d reported me to police for refusing to pay. Needless to say I will never use Airbnb again if I can help it.