Welcome to Airbnb Hell. That’s our experience with a recent listing – I can’t actually call them “hosts”. People like that should never be allowed to rent out premises. The warning signs were there.
We entered the premises, and it didn’t quite look like the shiny photos. Anyway, we read the notice about not stepping loudly on the stairs, and the wifi details. The wifi didn’t work. So we contacted them, and found that in fact, those details were incorrect, and we were given other wifi details. The TV didn’t really work. After a few replies, the hosts stopped responding to that issue. Well, it did work, but none of the remotes operated it, it only had one channel, and there were no instructions at all.
We found the kitchen tap broken, the toilet seat loose, and the strip on the floor between the kitchen and living room was loose. We found no shampoo or soap in the shower. Well, all these things indicated a lack of care, but one overlooks them. What else could we do?
However, we discovered, to our horror, one thing that could not be overlooked. The mattress had a wrinkle in it, so we pulled back the sheets to find that not only was there no mattress cover, but the whole mattress was blood stained. Someone died on it? Blood was smeared all over it. It also had a lot of dirt, muck, it looked like it came out of a heroin doss house. Seriously, you wouldn’t put a homeless person on a mattress like that. Only a drug addict, completely out of it, would sleep on that mattress. No way we were going to spend another night on that bed.
We contacted for the hosts at 9:00 AM. No response. 10:00 AM, no response. We waited. No response. We contacted Airbnb. They couldn’t get a hold of them either. Finally, at almost 1:00 PM, four hours later, the hosts offered to get a mattress cover. We replied that the mattress was disgusting, and needed to be replaced. These people were charging good money for this listing, more than local hotels charge for a room.
Then it was the afternoon. No communication. I enquired what was happening at 5:00 PM, 5:30 PM, and 7:30 PM. No response. I called Airbnb. They couldn’t get a hold of the hosts. Finally at 10:00 PM the hosts informed us they were not going to replace the mattress. They were not convinced because we were upset and angry. If we had been nicer, they might have done it.
Wow. Who are these people? What are they doing running a business through Airbnb? They did not even believe the mattress was in poor condition. They claimed it happened recently, which is blatantly untrue; the mattress was clearly the result of years of dirt muck and personal grime.
So, this horrible experience left us high and dry. We had to go to a hotel that night, and arrived at midnight after all this trouble. The next morning at 7:00 AM, we were looking for other accommodations, but of course because it was the last minute, there was pretty well nothing left. We spent a further 14 hours dealing with Airbnb, to try to find a suitable alternative. Sitting in the car, with our food spoiling.
I had to argue with three Airbnb case managers who said they would only give us $200 towards another place, which was not going to work, as anything in that price bracket had disappeared months ago. Case managers promised to call back, but never did. Finally, at 6:00 PM, we got a case manager who actually helped, and got a proper voucher for us. Finally, at 9:30 PM that night, we located something (a few places I contacted were in fact not available).
To add insult to injury, that horrible mattress must have had bugs, which bit my wife; I took photos. Like I say, these people are dangerous as “hosts”. They don’t care, they have no sense of responsibility to their guests, and they have no standards.
