Airbnb Hosts in Spokane Were Scammers

The story I am about to tell is the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. I traveled 2500 miles and thought I found a perfect Airbnb. Upon meeting the host and his wife I felt good about the decision to pay upfront and thought the place was beautiful — this was only a first impression, though.

I went about my business and upon returning home I noticed my curtains were opened. I then quickly checked my belongings only to find a few prescription pills missing and then a credit card. I decided to hold off and sleep on it before making any accusations. Much to my surprise, the host told me he had to ask a young women to move out early because she was smoking. I said I have never smoked and hadn’t smelt anything although her room was directly across from mine.

Near the end of the week I was trying to reach out to the host and he was not responding. I received a response indicating I needed to look at my Airbnb message board and found a message telling me to “revert.” I didn’t know what that meant so I messaged back inquiring and was told I had violated the host’s smoking policy…. but I don’t smoke.

Then I received a message from the host that said if I initiated a cancellation then he wouldn’t wouldn’t have to and doing so would get me refunded for the days I didn’t use. I immediately called Airbnb and they said quite the contrary: it is the host that has to initiate cancellations and if their reasons are baseless and unproven you get your unused days refunded. So basically the host was baiting me with falsehoods so that I would initiate a cancellation and be liable for his losses.

There is a point when you know that a person is trying to run a scam. I eventually was able to get my refund but wanted to also let everybody planning to visit Spoken to stay away from hosts like this one.

Airbnb Guests Wanted Champagne Holiday on Beer Budget

This guest and their family arrived very late and then proceeded to cook outside of the designated hours. They booked for three people and four people arrived. Just about every rule was broken by the family. There was not supposed to be eating in the bedrooms; the extra guest did so. We have a policy of no air conditioning on in the daytime and these are specifically written in a set of do’s and don’ts in each room. The option is to pay additional money during the daytime if air conditioning is required. We did not charge despite the violations.

What alarmed us most was the number of cartons of beers that were brought into the property, filling my spare fridge completely. I could tell we were in for a champagne holiday on a beer budget. We are a no-smoking home. The guest’s parents said they only smoke a couple a day, so I allowed them to smoke on the deck. Biggest mistake ever because a couple means two packs a day where they are from and I spent days trying to rid the house of the awful smell.

The rental was for two rooms, a bathroom, and toilet. They received use of the kitchen and other areas at our discretion. The problem was the guest’s party considered the whole house their domain: like I said, champagne holiday on a beer budget. This culminated on the next to last night when the guests decided to turn my entertainment deck area into their very own ‘footie pub.’ This started at 5:00 PM and went on well past midnight. No consideration was given as to whether I wanted to use the deck or watch anything myself. They were watching footie and b*** the rest was the attitude. By now they must have thought they owned the deck.

There I was thinking my home had been invaded; these people are unreal. They went out the following day and upon their return, they expected a repeat performance of Footie Pub 2. I told them that the deck was for my and our family friends’ exclusive use that night. This outraged them and they said “but you haven’t booked the deck!”

I almost fell over laughing and informed them that I don’t book any areas of my home ever and that as guests they fit in around what we are doing, not vice versa. Undeterred, a contingent of them marched out onto the deck and sparked up the ciggies and glared at me. They then asked that I watch something different outside so that they could watch their footie inside in the lounge. I said they had individual TV’s in their rooms they could use to watch there.

This did not fit the Footie Pub 2 mentalities of booze and ciggies. Realising they were on a losing wicket they staged a walkout (just like small children stomping their feet) at 10:00 PM at night with the mum staying on to say “if you had just let us watch our Footie and use the deck then things would have been fine. Things have been great up until now.” Well of course they had been great because they had full use of the house for a third of what they would have paid for a full house.

I am starting to think the expectations of some Airbnb guests have moved beyond a sharing experience and wanting a full-service hotel or apartment. If you want exclusive time and space then book with the corresponding prices would be my suggestion. I hope people don’t make the same mistake of allowing these people into their home. I tripled my prices and we have a nicer quality of guest staying now.

Airbnb Host Uses Private Space and Overshares

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This Airbnb host listed a room with a private bathroom. We left the room locked on our second day. The host or his child used the bathroom and bed while we were out of the house sometime that evening. Photos show a rumpled bed and pillows displaced; a wet towel was hanging up, and someone else’s toothpaste and toothbrush were on the window sill. The house was full of smoke although the listing clearly indicated “no smoking.” No one else was on the premises during this time. The host was very agitated and communicated to us extremely personal circumstances including an incident with the police earlier that evening. This made us feel unwelcome and unsafe. We left immediately. The host’s behavior as the evening progressed was truly bizarre.

Nightmare in Quebec Followed by Inept Airbnb

I reserved a non-smoking room through Airbnb for 30 days at the last minute due to a change of plans. Upon arrival, the entire building smelled like an ashtray and the room was even worse. As a non-smoker, I was literally gagging and knew this wouldn’t work.

Upon further inspection, I discovered stains on the cover that looked liked dried blood. I pulled back the cover and saw dirt, a paw print, and hair (presumably from an animal but at this point, it didn’t matter). I notified the hosts who sent around an air freshener and finally some clean sheets.

The hosts refused to issue a refund and wanted to keep the entire fee (over 1,200 CAD) for a few hours’ stay. I was out of there as soon as another place could be found. I went through two case managers, who decided the best solution was to allow these creepy scamming hosts to keep half of the fees.

I pointed out to the case managers that it’s illegal to obtain funds through misrepresentation of goods or services but they evidently weren’t bright enough to grasp basic legal concepts. They gave me their final final decision tonight and basically told me to get over it. That’s not going to happen; I don’t like scammers. At least I will be going down swinging.

Thought I was Protected by the Airbnb Guarantee…

I’m a seasoned host on both Airbnb and HomeAway/VRBO. I have never any real issues with guests until my experience in May. Little did I know a band was staying in my home after some show gigs in the Raleigh NC area. There was everything from cannabis left in potted plants to cigarette butts, empty beer cans in the yard, etc. I was not happy with the findings but thought my $300 dollar security deposit would easily cover the damages and excess cleaning charges. Four weeks later and I am still waiting on compensation for my damage claim. This was my first claim involving an Airbnb guest and I am now aware the Airbnb site provides little protection for a host. My customer service experience with Homeaway/VRBO has never been this poorly executed. I was told my claim/concern has been escalated and that was three weeks ago. I have been calling every week and the Airbnb agent just verifies ‘someone’ is working on it. Long story short, I am no longer hosting on Airbnb. Anyone considering hosting on Airbnb: don’t blindly think you will actually get paid out of the security deposit you post. You have no control over it.

Stay away from Airbnb Properties Managed by Oasis

Do not book any Chicago property managed by Oasis unless you want to be nauseated by smoke. Even the host smelled of smoke when he greeted us in the lobby. I’m still waiting for them to refund three nights because they admitted it had smoke odors even though they advertised it as non-smoking. We had to get a hotel.

After conversations with Oasis staff, they offered to refund one night while they “deep cleaned”. (After we left for a hotel, I received an email at 11:00 PM that we could come back the next day to “check it out” as it had now been deep cleaned). By now we had checked in and unpacked at a new hotel. We were traveling on business with meetings all day and it wasn’t possible for us to check out of the hotel and go inspect the apartment (smoke odors don’t typically go away that quickly).

As a side note, they advertised their property as able to sleep three people; we assumed the sofa would be a place to sleep but there was no bedding provided for it except a blanket that was in the closet. I was very disappointed and hope they will do the right thing and refund our $600+. We have been trying every angle to get in touch with someone but they have gone silent.

I am a rental property owner and list my property on Airbnb, and we have used the service traveling internationally. This is the first bad experience. Oasis (the supposedly global property management company) presents themselves as only representing highest quality properties and that was certainly not the case. On top of it, they have completely refused to reply or deal with me to bring this situation to a satisfactory close. Even the partial refund they offered has not been granted. Thankfully American Express also has my back and is working through the situation.

Guests Intentionally Left Cigarette Burns Over Everything

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Two women in their late thirties made a booking for our unit. It was a last minute booking through Instant Book and their profiles showed that they were from a faraway city in my own country. The booking was for four people: two Airbnb account holders who had traveled together before and two other unnamed guests.

After two hours, I received a message from one of the guests stating that this booking was made for a friend. She gave us another contact number. The people who showed up a few hours later were two teenage looking young girls with two young male friends. It seemed like they were two young couples, but neither mentioned the Airbnb users who had made the booking. They were also very reluctant to talk about themselves and only interested in knowing how to work the TV, change the channels, and use the PS3 games. One of the couples went into the master bedroom to change their clothes while we taught the other dude how to use the IPTV.

They were staying for two nights. On the day they are supposed to check out, they ignored us the whole morning. When it was noon, they messaged us requesting to stay one more night. We told them that we would only accept changes made through Airbnb. They kept delaying us with all sort of excuses. We called the guest who made the booking and she said that she would check with her “friend”.

However, the next day, they had yet to pay through the system or accept the date changes. Nonetheless we went to the condominium at the agreed check out time. We waited outside the door for over an hour. We called, we knocked, and we screamed, but nothing worked. When we were about to call a locksmith to break open the door, they opened it and said that they were sleeping inside. They again refused to pay through the Airbnb system.

After an exhausting half an hour of haggling, we relented and allowed them to send the money to us via a bank transfer. However, after they paid and hastily left, we noticed the place was dirty and messy with wet clothes, food and plastic bags and whatnot everywhere; it was a dump. The scene was as if someone had brought all the neighbours’ dustbins inside and poured everything out everywhere.

When we were cleaning we noticed some damage here and there. After awhile it seemed like the damages were very extensive, so we stopped cleaning and immediately started taking pictures. In the end, what happened was that there were cigarette burns everywhere, and my unit was hardwood themed. Most of them were cigarettes that had been left and burned through; you could tell from the rectangular burn marks on edges. Then we also found numerous circular burn marks, which means that it was burnt intentionally all over the place. Note that cigarettes were left everywhere, dozens and dozens of them.

The burned furniture included: hardwood sofa table; cotton sofa; hardwood dining table; custom wooden kitchen top (where the stove is); custom wooden makeup table and the side wooden drawers; leather bedside table; hardwood living room TV stand; and the hardwood master bedroom TV stand. Everything wooden was damaged. Non-wooden items damaged as were some cooking pots, the sofa and a leather bedside table (which goes against the theme but was cheap and good looking).

I contacted Airbnb but their response did not give me any confidence. I went ahead and filed a police report. Luckily the people who made the booking were in my country. In the meantime the tenants did not respond to us after leaving the place, and the person who made the booking denied doing so or having any knowledge of it. This was despite the fact that I had talked to her and she mentioned that she would check with her friend the night before.

When deciding how to file a police report. I discovered something amiss. The wire transfer to our account had a name on it; it was made by the woman who was the Airbnb user’s friend (who is also a host and was supposed to come for this trip), but it was clearly her account that made this booking and even used it to message us on the first day. What’s even more complicated was the relationship between those who stayed over. They left a scarf within the pile of garbage before we noticed the extensive burns. When I went down to get hold of them, the two teenage looking girls left, and only the two young males were there. I tried to pass the scarf to them and their reaction was like “screw them; throw it away for all we care.”

We also found some weird white beady pills (for consumption) that didn’t seem like normal candy; they were made of powder but did not have any imprints on them. It seems hasty to assume these are drugs because there were dozens of them all over the place (aren’t drugs expensive for teenagers?) but it is apparent these were no Tic Tacs because they were powdery in nature. So, not only did I have irresponsible guests, but they were teenage prostitutes? And my unit had been converted into a drug den?

A few cooking pots were burnt (but not with food or any oily material). I made my report to the police based on the photos and evidence on hand. The police came to the same conclusion as me. These people were sent by the Airbnb users to purposefully wreck our place. As explained by the policeman, there were clear signs of deliberate sabotage elements, but we were missing the most important element, motive.

Why did they do this? We never had any prior engagement with these people. I told the police that I would wait for Airbnb to resolve this. However, the police are saying that an investigation is possible for such cases. In the end, I just want to be compensated for my losses. The fact that there maybe a very intricate story behind these wayward tenants, while interesting, is of little importance to me.

I hope that the tenants were somehow related to the Airbnb users, as those four young males were ugly. Why four, you ask? Nope, it isn’t a typo. The two young men we saw during check-in were different than those during check-out. I wondered why they made us wait standing outside the condominium unit for a whole hour. Was it a last minute customer? The plot thickens. How I wish i had taken a photo of their faces so I could post it online…

Airbnb House Filled with Potheads, Constant Sleepovers

Our host did not indicate how many people were living in his house (four people, including him). When we arrived the house was freezing because their idea of comfortable is to sit in the home with jeans and jackets on. Then we thought that the house didn’t have a heater; it did, but they would only turn it on for two hours at night. There was no hot water, just warm water the same temperature as cold water where we come from. The sitting room had nothing, the TV didn’t work, and there was no light. They sat on the couches with their shoes on. Every night they had friends over who would smoke with them and crash on the living room sofa. Every other night they had parties until 3:00 AM and a bunch of people would come and all smoke together, play, and sing music loudly. They would not leave and all of them would sleep in the living room.

The only time we sat with them was the first day, to get to know them. Only one person spoke English. He told us right away that he was going to marry another one of the roommates because she offered him money; he is Italian and she can legally stay in Spain. It was terrible knowing this because our room didn’t have a lock or safe. For safety we had to lock all our valuables in our luggage every day and night. Everybody living in the house was a drug user and the smell of marijuana permeated the whole house everyday. The living room table was filled with marijuana and cigarette ash, as if the house were a drug den.

All their kitchen equipment was in bad condition so we bought our own. They did not have a water boiler so we bought that as well. One day I came to make tea and couldn’t find my mug; they were smoking and using my mug as an ashtray. They showed no remorse and I had to clean it. They did not provide any cabinets in which we could put our supplies and furthermore used our food on more than three occasions even though we told them it was ours. They blamed us for not putting our food in our section of the fridge; mind you these products were not supposed to be in the fridge.

They also kept the cats’ litter box in the small kitchen. At times the litter box wouldn’t be cleaned for two days and the whole kitchen would smell horrible. Furthermore they did not wash their dishes for days and filled the washing area with their dishes; this was why we couldn’t wash our dishes.

Once they could have killed us as well. We came back to the smell of gas and burning everywhere and saw that the pan was on the gas and it had not been turned off. It was possible it had been left like that for more than an hour; smoke was everywhere. We did not speak to anybody throughout our stay and were outside every day. We spent half the day outside trying to avoid their horrible house for the fifteen unfortunate days we had to spend there. Nestor and his roommates are true definition of potheads who have no responsibility or concern about what they do or how they treat their guests. We did not want to write a review, as we thought it was best to just forget about it, but they showed no respect, forcing us to write the truth.

Slander is Acceptable to Airbnb Regardless of the Facts

My wife and I stayed at this Airbnb in Barcelona with a host who has had rave reviews. My review was also quite positive as we had no complaints. Upon posting my review, I saw what our host, Gloria, had written. Her comments were slanderous fabrications with no basis in fact. What happened is that we left the room early in the day. While we were gone Gloria, without our permission, let a “worker” in the room to do some “repairs.” After the worker had left she smelled smoke. That evening, upon our return, we were confronted by Gloria and accused of smoking in the room. Neither my wife nor I smoke and we were not about to take up smoking at seventy years old. We assured Gloria that we had not smoked and the accusation was false. It was pointed out to her that the fact that there was no smell of smoke before we left for the day or in the evening should be a clue as to who smoked in the room, i.e. the worker. I thought that was the end of it.

When I read her review I was livid as she persisted with the slander and a whole lot of other accusations. Filing a complaint with Airbnb, I was advised by a representative that there was nothing to be done, because a review is a review. My response to Gloria’s review was taken down. The reason was that I shared what Gloria had told us, in great detail, upon arrival in her place. She claimed to be one of twenty-five people in the world with a rare kind of brain tumor. Believing her, I had given her the benefit of a doubt and in my response indicated that Gloria’s rant may be mitigated by the fact that she has brain tumors. Apparently Airbnb decided that a comment on the host’s health condition violated their policy, even though the host herself had gone through excruciating detail telling us her medical history. Confidentiality did not seem to be a concern with her. My protest, a matter of honor, has been ignored. The host’s falsehoods stand while my response has been taken down. Needless to say we will not be staying at Airbnb properties again. My trust in them has been badly shaken as it is clear that some hosts are, in my opinion, less than stable.

Lawyerly Defense in Mexico: Host Plot Foiled

My Airbnb rental was reserved for 45 days in central Mexico. I’m still here. But I’m only here because of the intervention of a Mexican lawyer. My host complained when my flight was late. We got past that. My host has a rescue dog (one of the three on the property) and she asked me to photograph the dog. I’m a professional photographer and I said I would. The host said he/she was leaving for Thanksgiving to the US. The host said, “Can you take care of the rescue dog in your apartment while I am gone?” I said, “Okay.” I didn’t want to do it, but being an idiot, I said, “Okay.”

As we marched up to her departure date my host said, “I will be leaving the rescue dog with you for a few minutes every day until I leave so that you can get to know him.” I responded, “No. I know him well enough already and please tell me what I can do about the heat here as there is none.” To her credit a portable heater was brought in. She said when the tank is exhausted call this number and order another. You will pay for it.” I was losing my sense of humor by now. The issue of water came up because in central Mexico one must have bottled water. There was water – again to her credit – when I arrived. As it ran out I asked about more. She said, “I have more bottles here. You can pay me for one.” I didn’t complain.

Then I, who had not smoked for years, smoked. And the host saw me smoke. One instance and boom. She called Airbnb and said, “I want her out.” She emailed me and wrote, “Get out. I’m putting your things on the sidewalk and I am changing the locks.”

I called my lawyer here in central Mexico. Here’s the fun part. I used to live in central Mexico. Yes, I have a lawyer here. And Mexican law is this: someone rents you a place? You can’t be evicted without a court case, period. Forget Airbnb. You have rights in Mexico. So I emailed the host this information and she folded. As it turned out, she doesn’t own the place. She rents it. She sublet it to me. I don’t care. She’s continuing to abuse me verbally and Airbnb, who said it would help me, hasn’t. No shock there either. Airbnb will listen to your complaint and that will make you feel so much better. But it will do nothing for you. I’m not moving until I have to go back to the US. Of course, my time in this place is ruined and a nightmare. But at least I get to tell you that if you are in Guanajuato, Mexico and this happens to you, stay put and find a lawyer. One hour’s consultation and your mind will be at ease. Airbnb is a joke.