Host Called Cops On Us But They Hate Her Too

Posted on February 7, 2021

We rented an Airbnb called the “streamside forest peaceful” in Salida, Colorado from a host for $1,900 for five nights. Even with some bad reviews about her being nasty, spying on people, not refunding damage deposits, and a mouse problem, we were desperate so I reluctantly booked it.

After I booked it she sent a lengthy contract with crazy details. Others had complained about this as well. I have never seen a contract sent after the booking. Anyways, we got to the tiny trail of a road behind a cow gate and it looked sketchy. The contract said a 4×4 was recommended but that she maintains the drive. In 19 years of going to Colorado we have never taken a 4×4. Two years ago we had five feet of snow that week and still only used front wheel drive. We were in a front wheel drive Buick Enclave.

We started up the slight incline and it was sheer ice and clumped up snow that hadn’t been cared for at all. I have attached a picture. The car immediately started spinning out and turning sideways in the road. My husband had everyone get out thinking that may help. The kids went in the house which was dangerous even walking to, and we continued to try to get the car to either go up or down. No luck. We got a shovel and that was a joke.

After pushing and accelerating, it backed up a bit but then got stuck again. At that point we called the host. She offered no solution and told my husband the contract said we should have 4×4 and she was not responsible for his inability to drive. What a joke. He was a police officer and drove in every condition as well as driving every year to Colorado with no problems.

My husband told the host we needed to call a tow truck. She offered no assistance and he said we needed to cancel because we couldn’t get to her house. Even if we got towed to the drive, we would be stuck all week. She then hung up on him. I called her back and she didn’t answer.

I cancelled the reservation even though it was obviously past the refund date, thinking Airbnb would consider it extenuating circumstances and we would still get a refund. Then she messaged me and told me to leave the property or she would call the police. We left having no place to go, exhausted from driving 13 hours. It took all of us pushing the car to get it back to the end of the trail to the cow gate.

We were parked on the side of the road when the police came up to talk to us about the “trespassing report.” The policeman said: “Oh, we know her! She is always calling the police about stuff. Her neighbors hate her and we can’t stand her.”

We had a good laugh about what a miserable person she is and they went on their way. After that I messaged three other hosts looking for a new place to see if we would have the same driveway problem and all three said they maintain the property and it was all clear, like it should be. We rented a new place from VRBO. The host was so gracious and the road and drive completely clear.

Now the fight with Airbnb started. They completely leave it up to the host whether they refund you or not. Do you think she would refund us? — she got to keep every dime. I’m sorry the host is such a greedy miserable person that wouldn’t refund a family on vacation.

Airbnb Host Posted Photos of a Different Apartment

Posted on January 4, 2021

I rented a suite on Airbnb for 29 days. Upon check in, the entire place was filthy: hair on the floor, dirty sheets. Absolutely no towels were provided. We left immediately. The place was disgusting.

We messaged the host right away and he denied it, so I contacted Airbnb. We checked in at about 2:30 PM and didn’t hear back from Airbnb until the next day. We’ve been going back and forth with Airbnb for a month now. They are saying the apartment is exactly as described. However the host described it as a three-bedroom apartment when in fact it is a one bedroom with one bed and a couch.

The photos were 90% accurate but extremely misrepresented. It was photoshopped to remove all the rust and grime around all of the sink. Most deceiving is the living room the host advertised. He used an entirely different photo of another place with only a couch that somewhat looks similar. If you look at the photos of the windows, the sliding glass door, and the walls, it’s clearly not the same apartment.

I am out about $2,350 CDN as Airbnb is refusing to refund me. This host has also received similar scam reviews on his profile. The guests from his other listings are corroborating my claims. Yet Airbnb still has this host on their platform and refusing to refund me as a guest.

I have been using Airbnb for about eight years with over 77 excellent reviews as a host and a guest. I do not have a history of trying to cancel reservations. I’d like to sue this host in small claims court as I live in Vancouver as well but his information is not available to me and he did not give me a phone number (other guests have said the same). What are my options for getting my money back?

Ongoing Nightmare Housing Situation: Airbnb Unlivable

Posted on October 10, 2018

This is truly a nightmare that started over two weeks ago. I’m in a hotel now still dealing with it as the home’s walls (with wiring) started filling with water due to a broken pipe after the host’s property manager had failed to do anything for weeks and the host refused to do anything. I’ve had little support from Airbnb and still have 11 days left on the prepaid reservation.

It began two weeks ago (so much worse now). I rented a long-term Airbnb property, from mid-August through November 1st while we were waiting to have a house built. There were a few minor issues early on, but recently things have gotten really bad. The owner is not in the country (the place is in Baja, Mexico and he’s in the US). He has a local property manager that is supposed to handle things but has rarely shown up and is now not responding at all. 99% of the time when I contact the owner, he says he’ll contact the property manager and then I don’t hear back, email again and the whole thing starts over.

The more major issues include: there is an Airstream trailer on the property we assumed was being stored here, but suddenly without any warning a woman with three dogs moved in. We didn’t see her, only the dogs initially, and thought they were wild dogs that had snuck in, which is common here. When we went to shoo them off – as we have two little dogs – a woman came out of the trailer screaming at my partner that it was her property.

I immediately messaged the owner who told me he had no idea what was going on, but that he co-owns the place with his brother and maybe he knew; it was probably a crazy ex-girlfriend. She’s still here. He’s never responded when I’ve asked again about it and the dogs bark continuously; most of the time they’re just left outside. Sometimes they come right to our door and bark incessantly, making it difficult not only to take our dogs out but to actually enjoy the property.

There was a big rain storm last week and with the high heat and humidity, the front door has swollen so much that it’s cracked. It’s very difficult to shut at all, likely insecure, and easy to break in. Part of the ceiling has also being chipping off as there are cracks in the concrete with bad water leaks. They’re developing in many other places in the house, so another rainstorm is likely going to make that worse.

The property manager is also supposed to be taking care of the landscaping which has gotten out of control (not a big deal to us but it really looks bad), and pick up the trash once a week. We haven’t seem him in two weeks now so it’s really piling up and there doesn’t seem to be a place we can take it here; we’re in a small village in Baja, Mexico.

I think he’s supposed to be doing something to the water to prevent algae too, but that’s not happening since he isn’t here. Algae-filled water has been pouring down the side of the house near the front door.

An Airbnb case manager contacted the host right away who promised him he’d reach the property manager – suddenly he was able to. He promised the guy would arrive within two hours. He never did: no message, nothing.

Finally about 8:30 he messaged that the guy’s car had broken down and that his dad would give him a ride over. He was leaving right then and said that he would also come back at 7:30 in the morning to work on the landscaping problem. He’s just a few minutes away. Twenty minutes later, no one had come and I had to be up at 5:00. It was dark and he wouldn’t be able to see many of the problems anyway so I told him to just come in the morning. He could start the yard stuff and then afterward we’d show him the problems, that we would be here all day until about 5:00.

Of course, he never showed. I messaged him to see when he was coming. There was no response. I messaged the owner. Finally after he received a picture of the algae-covered wall that had gotten much worse he said it was “emergency time”. He was going to contact his brother who knows people there. He promised he’d contact him several times before but apparently he never really did because once that happened, his brother (the co-owner) sent over a couple that lives nearby and knows the house very well.

They were shocked and said it was extremely unacceptable. It was well known that this property manager takes people’s money and rarely does anything. He is totally unreliable. They also found more major problems that we hadn’t noticed and things have gotten worse; there are pools of water on the floor now. They took a lot of pictures and said they would be sure both brothers would receive them.

In the meantime, our Airbnb case manager was on his weekend holiday and wouldn’t be back until the next day. The owner said he was firing the property manager and trying to find someone else, but we finally left to go out to eat at 5:00 as we’d told the property manger. Then we got a text from him just as we got there that he was here waiting outside, knowing full well we wouldn’t be here.

After what the couple said and the experiences we’ve had, we totally don’t trust this guy. He still has all the keys. I messaged the owner and told him to call him to let him know because I really didn’t want to go back there and deal with that at this point. He told me he couldn’t reach him, but we got back and he was gone, with the trash taken and a few weeds taken out in the front. We haven’t heard anything from anyone after that.

We still have no cleaning supplies and have gone through almost all the towels soaking up the water. We messaged the owner again that the priority is now to get us cleaning supplies, towels and to get the backyard cleaned up because it’s gotten so much worse since even two days ago and we can’t take the dogs out front. The couple that saw it said how dangerous it was too. They were blown away about how bad everything was as the wife was a caretaker here a year ago and said it’s just gone completely downhill fast.

The owner keeps saying he’s trying to find a new “co-host/property manager”. In the meantime I was able to get a quicker move-in date on the house being built, October 15th. I told the case manager at Airbnb who previously told me he would process the reservation so that I wouldn’t be charged anymore. I was hoping I’d be able to move out of this situation early.

Based on his information I moved forward and was really happy I managed to get that negotiated that morning. I messaged the case manager (the one who’d left me hanging for 2.5 days while things got even worse) and he said he made a mistake, since it’s long term I had to pay for all the reservation. He knew it was long term as he even mentioned it in the message thread before telling me I could do that and then said several times he hoped I’d be able to move early. That, fortunately was resolved, with a new end date: October 16th.

It continues… a new repair person came and seemed very reliable. There was finally a new person that came to do some things but there have been so many other problems in the meantime, I don’t even have time to write about them all. The owner told me that he “just found out” the lots on the property – all in a relatively small area that’s gated so it looks like it’s all one place – were sold and he can’t do anything about the woman in the trailer and her dogs.

Airbnb won’t do anything because the trailer is now not on the host’s property. I want to scream. I told the case manager it was unacceptable; he did admit his mistake and said he’d talk to his team, so I’m waiting on that. I am seriously baffled at how this is being handled. I was pretty much just trying to deal with it until the check-out time, but then this happened…

A bad situation got worse after we noticed water seeping through the bedroom wall of the house we’ve been staying in through Airbnb. It turned out there was a broken pipe that was leaking in the walls, with wiring… going through the kitchen, bathroom and bedroom. The repair person said it was dangerous (obviously, and we couldn’t use electricity there).

We couldn’t leave immediately; it was dark and you can’t drive in the dark here in Baja due to the bad roads and other problems. However, we did leave the following morning. Our case manager was, this time, on an extended weekend (he went on his weekend at the time the other issues were occurring and left no backup).

The owner finally realized how bad it was. A repair person is there now. He has to take out the whole wall and this is going to take a lot of time. The owner sent a couple of different payments to help with the hotel, and also for other expenses as we had to buy cleaning supplies. We received the payment he sent yesterday through Airbnb back in our bank account today. However, earlier payments were still not received, they’re missing somewhere with Airbnb. We’re covering most of the expenses on our own.

Airbnb has been totally unhelpful. They don’t care at all that we had to leave the place and get a hotel. In fact, with the case manager gone when I finally got someone else, he didn’t even read the message I sent asking about the missing payment, but instead called the owner and then messaged me that the owner was getting it repaired and had sent the payment. That had all been documented in several places, but the Airbnb case manager didn’t bother to read it and just made things worse for me with the owner.

I am extremely disappointed with Airbnb. What would have happened if I didn’t have the extra cash or credit cards to cover the hotel, when our house through Airbnb was already paid for? This is still not resolved. I am way behind on work because of all of this. I work online and extremely stressed out. We don’t know how long the repairs will take at this point so this may cost us a lot more than we can afford right now.

We tried contacting Airbnb on Twitter and got the response: “The team will look at it when they can.” The last case manager said he is looking into seeing where the money has gone but had initially said it can take 15 business days because of our bank – this is not the case since the other went through in a day. In addition, they should not be leaving us in this situation to deal with ourselves; ot’s insanity.

The case manager lied. He said it was a problem with my “payment method” but Airbnb never sent the payment. He had me set up a payout account, but then suddenly it was actually sent to my payment method. In the meantime, I’m at the hotel trying to figure out when we can get back. I told the owner we’re booked through Friday, October 5th several times.

On Thursday morning I reminded him I needed to know what was going on so I could extend if it was necessary, if we could get back Friday. I got a message from the new maintenance person that it would be ready at noon on Friday. I told him we’d be there at 3:00 to provide extra cushion time. He said that was okay, and I updated the owner.

Today after checking out of the hotel and starting to drive to the Airbnb (an hour away because it’s in a remote area), I got a message from the owner that the house wouldn’t be ready until tomorrow, asking if the maintenance person had told me that. I told him no, he had just confirmed we could go back today… we were on our way.

I was on the side of the road for 30 minutes trying to get a response from the owner or repair person. The repair person called and said friends of the host’s brother and the co-owner are painting the inside of the house tonight. They told him to redo the roof. No one bothered to inform us.

While Airbnb has asked for receipts for the previous part of the stay, they won’t respond to what to do now or when I’ll be reimbursed. I can’t keep paying for a hotel for the next 11 days, especially when I’ve paid for a house through Airbnb. We have to dine out as we don’t have a kitchen now so that’s more expensive too. It’s now 8:30 PM here on Friday, October 5th. Six hours and still no word. I’ve been sent in circles numerous times. The host hasn’t even apologized. I’m exhausted, super stressed… this is insanity.

Harassed by a Mentally Unstable Airbnb Host

Posted on September 19, 2018

This was the letter I sent numerous people at Airbnb; it explains everything except all of the bizarre messages this host sent us.

Three of my adult children and I stayed here last weekend. It was a business trip. We arrived on Friday, September 14th, 2018. With two air conditioners running, the heat was intolerable in the kitchen and second bedroom. Saturday morning we sent a message to the host, stating as such, just to make them aware. We made no demands or requests.

Sunday, over 24 hours later, while we were on a boat tour, our rental host messaged stating they would be entering the property. We requested they wait for our return (a completely reasonable request). The host then began harassing us, saying we were denying them access, then stating that according to what neighbors had reported (neighbors who were in the other part of the house and turned out to be friends of the hosts) we were in violation on several counts because we had more than four guests, had a pet, and were smoking in the building.

None of these things were true; I am the only smoker and I do not smoke inside. The host continued messaging us until late in the evening, even threatening to have New Orleans police escort us out. This was bizarre behavior – keep in mind this all began simply because we requested they wait for our return to enter the property.

I am a 62-year-old female. This is my first experience with Airbnb. It was unsettling to say the least to have this person threatening us and making false allegations. All of the above, as well as all correspondence between ourselves and the host, has been reported to Airbnb through their resolution department. We were offered one night’s refund as a resolution. This was unacceptable: this host cannot be allowed to cause other guests to be fearful and feel unsafe in a rented space due to their irrationality. There was something not right with this host.

Sunday night I was quite uncomfortable even going to bed. At approximately 3:00 AM a loud bang woke three of us up. I immediately thought it was the host banging on the door; it was frightening thinking we would be confronted by this unstable person. It turned out it wasn’t anyone at the door; it was fighting going on next door and lasted for a couple hours until someone left in a car.

I have read numerous such experiences with Airbnb hosts and there seems to be no accountability for such behavior and harassment. Their resolution offer is completely missing the human element; it’s not just about the money, it’s about Airbnb looking the other way when a host harasses, threatens, and causes a fellow human being to feel unsafe. This host should be held accountable and should not be given the opportunity to make another person feel unsafe or threatened. This all happened through Airbnb, and this is their responsibility. They need to fix these issues even if it means losing properties. Keep in mind it’s the guests who keep them in business.

We left Monday morning as scheduled and left the property in the same condition we would have had we had no issues with the host: extremely clean and tidy, linens/towels, etc. in the tub, trash all outside, dishes washed and put away, floor swept, stove cleaned, refrigerator wiped down, ice cube trays replenished, etc. We took numerous pictures and videos because we did not know what to expect next from this unstable person.

On our drive home the host messaged us and asked if we enjoyed our stay. It was quite strange, like asking if she successfully ruined it for us. This person is not safe. Airbnb should be concerned about the environment they place guests in. We are all placing trust in Airbnb when we rent through them. I am confident their agents would not want to be in such an environment.