Tag Archives: airbnb guest story

Airbnb Host Refuses to Post Exterior Photos

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Must just be me but we get into the strangest situations. We are planning to visit grandchildren in California this September. We had been looking for an Airbnb place to stay. The one in which we usually stay was booked long term until January 2022. We thought we found one; it was a mini farm with small animals, and thought it would be fun for the kids. With the pictures online, the inside looked clean and nice and the reviews were good.

Since we spend so much time outdoors, we wondered why there were no outside photos. Most places show the deck, porch, yard, etc. We emailed her and asked if we could see the outside.

She replied:

We appreciate your interest in the [house]. Airbnb does not allow pictures to be sent before booking. I assume to prevent people from booking outside of Airbnb? Don’t hesitate to ask if you have any questions that will help you determine if you would like to book a stay with us.

We could understand that, so we replied:

How kind of you for responding so quickly. We were thinking maybe you had photos of the outside that you could post on your listing. Have a great day.

She replied:

The [house] is a guest house on our property, so the outside area guests have access to is limited to the immediate surrounding area. We don’t have pictures of the outside for our own privacy, and security of our own home. If you could please explain why such interest in the outside and deck? We may be better able to answer your question or advise if we have what you’re looking for or not. Stay well!

We decided at $200 a day this was not the place for us when she would not even let us see the outside until we got there. Meanwhile we noticed they have their photos on the listing and even their child’s photo — so much for their privacy.

Hosts Pressure and Lie to Guests to Cancel Bookings

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I am relatively new to Airbnb, but I’m already sick and tired of it. I have had two experiences from hosts who wanted to cancel the reservation, but are too disorganised and lazy to do so more than a week in advance. They concoct fake excuses to pressure the guest into cancelling the reservation themselves, saving the host paying a cancellation fee. My first experience was with Evelyne Chiarro in Saint-Quentin-la-Chabanne. About a week before I was going to stay, she asked me If I had a car. I replied that I didn’t, so she edited her profile description to say that a car was mandatory to reach her address, and if I didn’t have one, I should cancel. She then refused to give directions to her house, and ignored all my other emails. I requested she cancel, but she ignored that. Because it was so close to the non-refundable deadline, I had to cancel the reservation myself.

My second bad experience was with an Agnes Pingkan in Groningen. A week before I was due to stay, she sent me an email saying that she didn’t live at the address any more, she thought she had deleted the Airbnb account, and she was surprised it was still accepting bookings. I emailed her five times to cancel my booking, but she ignored them so I had to do it myself. Her room is still listed on the website. Needless to say, complaints to Airbnb were ignored too. Both these times caused me a lot of stress and I had to book expensive hotels in the area because of the short notice given. This makes me distrust Airbnb because I don’t know if my bookings are going to be honoured right up until the last minute. Unless Airbnb deletes these user accounts and cracks down on this sort of fraud, I can only recommend people avoid this website in the future.

Airbnb “Sleepwalker” Guest Approached Me Naked

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My guest, Sean, arrived with two of his friends who were in a band. They seemed like a nice group of young men, although I had mistakenly thought his party would consist of a female and two males. Had I known it was three men, I wouldn’t have accepted the booking. At about 3:30 am, I saw the bathroom light come on, heard someone use the bathroom, and saw the bathroom light go off. Then I saw the person who had used the bathroom coming towards the living room where I was lying on the couch for bed. As he got nearer, I was surprised that he was approaching me and asked, in a normal speaking voice, “What do you want?”

That’s when I realized it was Sean and he was either nude or wearing “barely there” underpants. I couldn’t tell which it was in the room, which was only illuminated by streetlight and the light from my computer and other electronics. In response to my question, Sean said something like, “My bad. I sleepwalk,” and returned to his private room near the back of the house. Alone, with three men in the house – one of them just having gotten very close to me while naked, or nearly so, and while I was lying in bed – I was too afraid to go back to sleep. So I called Airbnb and they gave me $100 to book a hotel, which I did. I spent the rest of the night there.

I returned well after the time Sean had told me his group would leave. They were indeed gone and had left my exit doors and windows open and, therefore, unlocked, which was against my house rules. However, given the whole naked sleepwalking thing, that was the least of my concerns. Because of what happened with Sean, I looked up sleepwalking on the National Sleep Foundation website. According to the researchers there, a sleepwalker is not easily awakened and, when they are, they are confused and disoriented. Sean using the bathroom without stumbling or being confused about where he was – just as normally as an awakened person would – as well as responding to me coherently and, it seemed to me, with full alertness, when I asked him, without raising my voice to get his attention, what he wanted was not typical of a sleepwalker, according to research.

In addition, if he is aware that he sleep walks, why would he choose to sleep naked, or practically so, while in another person’s home – especially the one of a total stranger and a female at that? He also should have informed me before he booked my space that he was a sleep walker. The Airbnb representative told me she had “educated” Sean about the fact that he should let hosts know he sleepwalks. In my review, I informed Airbnb that, in my opinion, Sean should be barred from being a guest before he rapes somebody. As an Airbnb host, this was the first time I felt like my safety was threatened. This experience has made me rethink how I will proceed as a host going forward. In the attached photo, Sean is wearing pink.

Host’s screaming baby almost leads to violence!

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Stay away from 14 Judith St, Ashgrove, Brisbane!  The host became violent and abusive when I simply asked if their baby was OK after hearing it cry non-stop all day!  The response from Airbnb was very good when I called to complain, but it was still overall a nightmare experience.

We had put up with 11 days of screaming from their 2 yr old and the crying newborn. I’m a mother of two and never heard a baby cry like that. We got out OK and avoided voilence, but I see that Airbnb still has not taken down the listing even though there was another review complaining about the same noise issue. I feel it’s very dangerous for anyone to stay at that apartment as the host is clearly disturbed and will become hostile if anyone mentions the noise. Even though we stayed a horrible 12 days, our booking was cancelled by the host, therefore we were unable to post a review warning others. There’s no way to give a negative review on Airbnb as the hosts can block.

The next guests will have no warning because I can’t review on Airbnb!

Terrible Customer Service -Airbnb only wants your money

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Airbnb doesn’t care about your safety or your vacation, they just want your money. I had a terrible experience with them!

First of all, we couldn’t get into the place we booked and it was late at night. The hosts told us to find a hotel and they said would pay for the cab and hotel. After searching for a hotel until 2am, we finally found one and went there. The hosts then wanted us to spend another day of our 3 day vacation trying to find another airbnb place, and if it didn’t pan out we were on our own. So we made the decision to stay at the hotel and try to enjoy the rest of our vacation since we already lost 1/2 a day because of the airbnb hosts. We asked that they pay for 2 nights of the 3, but they reneged on everything. I had to ask that the phone calls be pulled. 18 emails later, they paid for one night at the hotel and I took my $250 credit. The next thing I know, Airbnb locked me out of my account and said they will not engage with me anymore. They admitted that they didn’t provide good customer service and they are sorry for that, but this matter is closed and they will not speak further to me. I called back and got a rep who was stoned. I wanted a name of someone in corporate to discuss this matter of customer service as they protect each other. He wouldn’t give me one. I eventually found a name, but it didn’t matter. I mailed in a letter about what happened and send copies of the emails… but again, no response from anyone at Airbnb.

I would not recommend using airbnb. If something goes wrong, you’re screwed.

Host lied, then demanded cash payment!

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I stayed at an Airbnb recently as I’ve used them 5 times already with no issues until recently. The place I rented was advertised as a 2 bedroom in NYC, but it was actually just a room with someone else living there! I was only told once I had paid the money and it was too late and too much of a hassle to book anywhere else. Long story short, it was one of the worst accommodations I’ve stayed in. The host was actually the brother and things were just not organized. Sheets smelled, put in the flat mates room, guys came home late with a woman at 3am forgetting they had a paying guest, didn’t provide the cash discount for the error to keep the booking after much persistence (apparently another Airbnb violation).

I complained to Airbnb, who were going to talk to the host while I was still staying in the rental, which I advise against, and I was offered a refund of 50% for the issues. Since I was still living there, I had the owner call me a liar and a cheat for having gone behind his back to complain, and given my visa status, he even threatened to file a claim against me if I didn’t adhere to his demands to refund the amount Airbnb took from him. I had to settle this with the host but I’m wondering if it’s worth bringing up with Airbnb. With the host threatening to sue me, and if he did go through with it (although I was not in the wrong) could have serious repercussions for me.

I’m wondering if Airbnb would be able or willing to protect me at all. After reading these articles, I highly doubt it.

Airbnb Refused to Refund Fees Despite Obvious Mistake!

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BEWARE OF AIRBNB!!

This is a warning and a true story of what happened to me when I rented a house using the Airbnb service.

I had a project in the USA and I rented a house using Airbnb. I found a nice 2 year old 2 bed room + garage house with a reasonable price of 105€/night. I made the deal with the house owner using Airbnb from August to December, 2015.  In November I found out that my project would last longer than the original move out date in December.  I agreed with the house owner that I would stay at the house until January 26th, 2016. Airbnb sent me an offer stating that I could continue renting the house until January 26, 2016 at the same price of 105€/night. I accepted the offer and everything was OK. Middle of January I found out that my project would not be finished earlier than February 8th, 2016. I ask the house owner if it was possible for me to stay at the house until February 8th, 2016.  The house owner said that it was OK and Airbnb sent me a new offer for the additional 13 days of renting. I was busy with my project and also very stupid and accepted the offer without checking the offer carefully.  Afterwards I noticed that the rental price had risen from 105€ to 137€. It was OK for me that the rental price increased for the last 13 days, but it is not OK that the rental price ALSO increased for the PAST 165 days from August 8th 2015 to January 26th 2016 considering I had already paid! I sent a message to the house owner to see if it was possible to correct that mistake. The house owner said that Airbnb refused to correct the mistake. I called Airbnb and the guy on the phone said that according the Airbnb policy, if the customer accepts the price it cannot be corrected by airbnb anymore.  The Airbnb agent asked me to contact the house owner to ask if I could get money back. Why didn’t Airbnb want to help a customer with this kind of obvious problem?  Instead they asked me to directly contact to the house owner… is it because Airbnb wanted to keep their additional fees?  I think so! I talked with the house owner and he agreed that I had paid $5,940 USD too much and he understood why I would like to get my money back. The house owner said that Airbnb had already taken their fee, so he could only return $4,339 USD!  I made the deal with house owner and received the $4,339 USD refund for the mistake, but I still had to pay $1,601 USD extra because Airbnb would not refund their fees!

Don’t be as stupid as I was and never accept any Airbnb offer before you have read it very carefully. My personal advice is to never ever use Airbnb’s services because the company policy is not to correct an obvious mistake if it means giving up any of their booking fees!  Please share this warning with all of your friends so nobody else will have the same problem I had.

Airbnb Nightmare in The Bahamas

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This is my review of my last Airbnb experienced with a host named Reno in the Bahamas:

Get a Hotel!  The cover photo does not reflect how dilapidated the actual building is. Christmas 2015 was going to be special because I surprised my college daughter with a fun trip to the Bahamas – where the hotels were almost full everywhere. Reno was attentive to our inquiry which gave the me faith to book Airbnb. Upon arrival things appear worn out but okay. We arrived with refrigerated food for snacks and dinner to take to the beach. Within 24 hours of being there: living room was uninhabitable due to overwhelming smell of CAT Urine embedded in the couch, TV non functioning-no cable, refrigerator NOT working – failed, $50 worth of groceries wasted. We lost vacation time due to mechanic in kitchen. We had to go out to dinner with an expensive taxi to eat. Within 2 hours of mechanic’s repair, the same refrigerator fan broke and high pitched “Whining” noise continued for the next 24 hours. The floors were dirty. Black mold on corners of floor/carpet interface upstairs and throughout outside balcony – unusable. Closets have space but are filled with junk. NO dish soap, no toilet paper, no garbage cans, no useable pots/pans (aluminum pots with scratched out Teflon – leached out and dangerous), no coffee maker, no coffee, no tea, no kettle, dirty dishes in cabinets without soap to clean and use, No blankets or bed covers -one sheet only. 2 small bath towels given to 2 women for 5 days, no beach towels, one roll of toilet paper only for 5 days. (We asked for more toilet paper and at least some tea for am which we had to microwave as there were no usable pots) As an Airbnb host and guest myself, I spoke with Reno about the issues we had and suggested we leave the next day. He assured me that he would get the refrigerator fixed and get us some toilet paper. Reno asked me to write down all the corrections that he needed for his AIRBNB (Hello? This is MY vacation). The next day when Reno brought toilet paper and a box of tea, he said that he refused to spend any more money on this venture and that the toilet paper, towels, tea, coffee, etc. were THE RESPONSIBILITY OF THE GUEST. I did again re-iterate that he should act like any decent hotel with basic preparations; sufficient toilet paper/towels/coffee maker/coffee/ tea/clean utensils/clean dishes/pots/pans/dish soap/bath soap/shampoo/conditioner/blankets/bedspreads/hangers in the kitchen/clean floors-sink, carpets, etc…………there is a certain level of expectation that we all enjoy. It was Christmas. In an effort to be compassionate in the season, my daughter asked me not to make a scene with Reno and leave, plus it was Christmas Eve. My daughter and I stayed away at the beach, restaurants and in town. Taxi’s are horrendously expensive with gas at $6/gallon. We recycled our Dunkin Doughnuts/Starbuck cups to use at the house, we recycled the one towel we each had for beach & shower daily – leaving them and us perpetually damp. We did not eat in the apartment. We did not use the bottom floor due to the cat-piss smell. We did not enjoy “Junkanoo Parade” on T.V. since it was not hooked up. The lack of shower curtain put water all over the toilet and the slick, slate floor – we used the one small face cloth on the floor to keep from slipping. We recycled our grocery bags to create garbage bags up and downstairs. My daughter and slept cold each night, no bedspread. This was the worst AIRBNB experience I ever had in almost four years of Airbnb travel.

Host from hell

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This story has a good outcome… the host got kicked off airbnb! I was her very first victim… I should of known better.  Never stay with anyone that isn’t a Superhost. I have used the airbnb site many times and spent over $4,000 so far this year with them.  I have an excellent rating as a guest and I have stayed with 5 hosts, one twice already, all have extended a “please come again”.

This host’s place was filthy.  She didn’t have sheets or proper pillows, and she expected me to sleep on decor pillows with a pattern. I would of woken up with a nice inlay on my face. I ended up sleeping with two towels as a pillow. I was in her town for business, but she had no closet for me, just a small space to put stuff on the floor. If I had stayed the full time my clothes (for work) would of hung in my car. Airbnb refuses to let me give her a review, as they stated they know I will give her a negative. I am disputing with the credit card to get the extra day back they charged me for. I’ll pay for one night in hell, but no more.

Terrible airbnb experience, and a $12 refund

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I had a 2 night stay at a home in Marin county this past weekend. The host said she’d be out of town and my mom and I would have the home to ourselves. We arrived to find the key sitting in a basket clear as day at the foot of the door and was told to leave it there when leaving. The risk of this to my property is quite obvious. The house was not very clean at all, but at that point I wasn’t ready to quibble. The first morning we leave to have breakfast and come back to find 2 keys in the basket, go inside and find lots of new items in the one bathroom. I peek in the spare bedroom to find loads of unpacked luggage. I had slept on the sofa since I had asked the host if there was a sofa or something I could put on the floor to sleep since I don’t sleep with my mom. The response was ‘people make it work’. Ok. So I collect my belongings by the sofa and put the sofa back together, since I assumed maybe the host had another airbnb guest, but I was angry about no advance notice of this since we were told, ‘you’ll have the house to yourself’. I tried to reach the host to ask what was happening to no avail. Finally I get a reply that says only, ‘that is Stacy, she texted me this morning, and I don’t like for people to sleep on the sofa’ Ok, that isn’t going to cut it. Is my stuff safe? Are we safe? I slept on the sofa because no one was home and I was ‘making it work’. It was too late to leave and get a hotel room, because we had to drive far to a wedding. We arrive back at 10pm and it seems ‘Stacy’ is still out. At 1am they (2 people) arrive and noisily use the bathroom, which of course is directly across from our room. At 1:30am begins a 15 min vomiting session in the bathroom. I get up around 4am to use the bathroom and the genius had used the SINK to throw up in and there is vomit everywhere. At 6:30am we leave, brushing our teeth in the kitchen sink. I contact the host and tell her that it was not appropriate not to tell us she was allowing her friend and boyfriend to stay without notifying us. How is that not self evident? I also spoke of the vomiting to be assured it wouldn’t be blamed on us. What kind of person doesn’t clean up their vomit when 4 adults are sharing a bathroom? As compensation maybe in her tiny mind to prevent a bad review, she offers to refund $12 of a $225 rental or offer 50% off the next stay. Right. I assume that I have no recourse since this type of situation is not addressed in the refund policy, but this was the second time using airbnb with my mom, the first featuring a 4 year old running around touching everything and hours later being told he was diagnosed with pneumonia the day before. My mom is 76. I guess the lesson here is that many hosts don’t give a sh*t.