Tag Archives: airbnb under construction

Odd Pet Situation: Host Expects Guests to Take Care of Dogs?

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I will start off by saying that this Airbnb listing did not mention that pets were in the apartment, so I was both shocked and pleasantly surprised (I like animals) when I saw two small dogs outside on the patio. They were puppies. I don’t mind dogs, and I just thought that they belonged to the owner. It turns out the owner was a live out owner, and no one owned the dogs. There was one guy who (I think) was supposed to look after the flat and the dogs, and serve as the attendant for the Airbnb, but he was gone (sometimes all day and most of the night).

I don’t know if this guy had a job, but while these dogs were getting food and water, they weren’t getting walked, and would constantly cry for attention. The neighbors would knock on the door, and leave notes telling us that the dogs were crying. There were three adults in the apartment who gone for most of the day. These poor dogs were not getting the best care. The other tenant in the apartment and I offered to walk them but they had no leashes.

Cut to later in the week two people came into the flat to adopt one of the dogs. Okay, so the owner breeds dogs, and then dumps them in her Airbnb until they can be adopted? Thats a pretty shitty thing to do to the dogs.

There were some other odd things about the place as well. The place looked like it was being lived in by someone else entirely. The kitchen had random family photos, none of which included the photo of the host. There were boxes full of stuff, and luggage in the closets. The bathrooms were stocked with a whole bunch of half used toiletries. It felt like a dumping ground, which someone never really moved out off.

On top of that, the place was on the bottom of a massive building, which was under construction. I’m sure this isn’t the worst experience, but it was odd, and misleading from the photos and description. There was no transparency, and neither the random guy or the host ever explained what was up with the dog situation.

Airbnb Host Tries Really Hard to Dissuade us

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We received a text from our host asking if we would like to cancel our booking because there was a water leak in the room and it had become very damp. We said that we still wanted to come because we had made, and paid for, travel and entertainment arrangements that we could not cancel.

She phoned to ask again if we would cancel the booking because the room was very damp. We confirmed that we did not want to cancel and that we would be arriving the next day. She then said that we must not arrive until after 5:00 PM because she was having someone come to give her a quote for the repair work. We don’t understand why we couldn’t check in just because a workman would be coming to look at a leak. This meant that we had to spend the day in Edinburgh with our luggage; therefore, we had to pay £10 for luggage storage.

After paying £10 to store our luggage, we then arrived at the accommodation (described on Airbnb as a large double room and that check in was flexible from 2:00 PM). We found that it was, in fact, a tiny room approximately 12’x8′. The double bed took up most of the room and it was certainly not big enough for two people and their accompanying luggage. It felt more like a cupboard than a room in which we would spend the next eight days.

In addition, the kitchen was very small and had a microwave situated very high up, meaning that it was in a dangerous position for handling hot food. Airbnb obviously does not carry out checks on the accommodation they sell and I wonder if this host and Airbnb carry Indemnity Insurance? Interestingly, there was no evidence of the room being damp and the only evidence of a possible leak was a small patch of dampness on the ceiling. Why would a host tell lies about the accommodation being damp when it wasn’t?

During the night, my husband had an episode of diarrhea with great urgency. He is diabetic and this happens when his blood sugar goes too high. He did make a mess on the toilet but he cleaned the toilet afterwards. The soiling was nowhere other than on the actual toilet. The host obviously went in our room after we’d gone out as she sent a text message to say that we had left the bathroom in a terrible state and that she had had to clean up the mess after us.

If she had found evidence of soiling on the toilet, it must have only been small because the toilet had been cleaned before we left the room. My husband is partially sighted but neither of us had noticed that the toilet was soiled. He explained about his illness and also that he had taken a sleeping tablet. Later, the host asked if he was feeling better and said that we were welcome to stay and hoped that we would be comfortable.

The host went out in the evening and did not return until the following day, when she must have gone in our room again. She sent a text message to Airbnb, while we were out, to complain that we had left the room in a ‘bad condition’. She told us that we had to leave the premises by 4:00 PM the same day.

We are unsure what ‘bad condition’ means. The room was clean but untidy. Nothing else. It was untidy because it was so small that there was nowhere to put anything.

On each occasion that the host raised these complaints, she had entered our room while we were out. She had never asked our permission to do that and, as such, she had no right to do it. My husband has to check his blood sugar three times a day and his blood testing kit was in a case on a shelf in the room. It was not there when we packed our belongings to leave. He now has to spend the rest of this week without testing his blood sugar. This could be dangerous. Where has his blood testing kit gone?

Finally, it is my belief that this host had another motive for evicting us using a fictitious reason of a room in a ‘bad condition’. Why did she contact us twice before our check-in date to try to get us to cancel our booking? What she said about the room being damp was not true so what was her reason for not wanting us to be there? Had she also booked someone else? Perhaps someone who was willing to pay more?

Unsafe Rental Under Renovation, Still Expected to Pay

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I requested to book a three-bedroom apartment in Paris. The pictures made the place look wonderful. It was described as having a rooftop terrace with 360-degree views of the Eiffel Tower. The host asked me to confirm the names and ages of the people traveling with me. I responded immediately with all the information; I am traveling with two young teenagers. The host then confirmed the reservation, charging my credit card.

Five minutes later he messaged me saying I will be using just two beds, the place is under renovation – unsafe for teenagers – and the rooftop is unsecured. I told him that was unacceptable and wouldn’t work for my family. He then tried to get me to stay in another of his listings and if I didn’t take it, it was my loss and there is a strict cancellation policy; I would still be charged. I canceled immediately as to not hold up any future reservations. Airbnb has not helped at all in getting me a refund and said if he rebooks it then I can have my money back. It was cancelled within five minutes of him confirming (charging my credit card). The place is under renovation and unsafe, per his own words, yet I am still expected to pay. This is a complete scam.

Will Never Use Airbnb Again After Construction

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I used Airbnb for the first time a week again and I will never use them again. The studio we rented was totally misrepresented. When we arrived at the rental, we discovered the building was a construction site. The hallways and stairwells were being decorated and the floors tiled. There was dust everywhere, building materials on the landings and stairwells, doors held open with fire extinguishers, and bags of rubbish left in the halls. There were workmen coming and going, and they were grouting the hall outside the rental while we were there.

The studio rental was also directly above a nightclub. The host gave no indication of the nightclub in the description and at no point contacted me beforehand to let me know about or apologise for the building work. In addition, the keypad system to enter the building stopped working. We were in fact locked out of the rental on our first evening. It was late and only by the sheer luck of another resident turning up with a key were we able to re-enter the building and get back to our belongings. I emailed and left a voicemail for the host the following morning about this issue and to date he has still not had the decency to contact me. Fortunately the estate agent next door that managed flats in the building was able to get us a key. However this took over an hour of our time, during which we could not leave for fear of not being able to re-enter.

As soon as I returned I logged an issue with the resolution centre. Again, the host has not had the decency to respond to me. I have now forwarded my issue to Airbnb directly, and despite a standard response saying I would be contacted within 24 hours, I have not had any communication from them. Previously I have used Booking.com and Hotels.com for both personal and work travel and I will be staying with them from now on. They are both excellent services that Airbnb could learn a lot from.

No Compensation for Trouble with Host and House

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I’ve been an avid Airbnb user for a while now, paying for around nine consecutive months in my travels. I used to trust the service and recommend it to anyone. I recently booked a new place. The listing said it was for two people, a private room with one bedroom and six beds.  I messaged the host, who should have been a woman based on her profile picture. I asked to book for around a month and a half from March 11th. The response I got was that the house was not finished yet, but should be by March 17th. I said that it was important for me to arrive on the 11th. I got a response saying that they may have everything ready by that day, and if I was fine with that I may come; they sent a special request for the new time I stated for the same price. Later, I found out that they changed the cancellation policy to a stricter one as well.

Unfortunately, my flight was cancelled twice, leading to me getting there a day late. The owner declined a refund for that day when I asked. This is where things started to go astray. I met the owner, a middle aged man nothing like the woman featured on the profile. He showed me the place, which wasn’t where it was listed on Airbnb but a few minutes’ walking distance from there. He explained that the house wasn’t ready yet, and led me to a house still under construction, unfurnished, and filled with cardboard and dust. Basically I had a decent room, but no shower, kitchen, or almost any of the amenities that appeared in the listing. Construction workers woke me up everyday when they started working, and there was no internet in the apartment, though it had been listed – something that was specifically important for me.

There was another guesthouse rather close by where there were some of the amenities listed (like a shower, kitchen, internet). I used that for whatever necessities I had. On the second day, I was locked outside by the construction workers and had to call the owner in the middle of the night for help. The first time this happened he asked me to sleep in the other guesthouse’s attic, which I myself had suggested earlier. However, I found out later that this wouldn’t be a good idea since people go in and out of there many times and it wouldn’t be possible to sleep. I called once more and he angrily refused. I had to make him come and open the door to my house, which was very bothersome for him. The living situation wasn’t comfortable at all and it was very cumbersome to move between these places and in between the construction going on in the building.

He had said things were expected to be finished by March 17th. So I waited. Things didn’t improve much, besides the shower and adding a few hangers. There was still no internet, no common areas, and no kitchen. I decided to call Airbnb customer service, and had a talk with a guy named John who was nice and promised to help me. He said that he could refund all of my money and help me find a new place. However, after a while we couldn’t find anything feasible so he said that he would advise me to keep looking for places and his colleagues would help me. After that, I got few responses from the team, in which they sent me links to places that were very different from my requirements: much lower standards, way over budget, or very far away from where I was. I talked to them once more and tried to explain that right now, apartments in Tokyo are hard to find with such short notice. It was also a busy tourist season, which would make it even harder.

More time passed, and I called again. Emailing customer service was slow and cumbersome. This time I spoke to another guy who asked for pictures of the place, which I provided. He agreed that the pictures showed the place in construction. However, he decided to call the host. What followed was a long conversation I had between him as a proxy towards my host. I basically said that I would like to get a refund as well as some compensation for the trouble that I got. It is simply unfair to customers to sell them places that are still under construction and not ready; I wanted to get some compensation for the days I stayed in that house as well as the days I was looking for a new apartment. The customer service personnel told me that since the host sent me a special request that showed the value of the new place with construction and everything, and made it clear to me that the place was under construction, I would not be compensated. They also said I should have expected that construction such as this go well past deadlines.

This would have been a good response, if it weren’t for the fact that it was simply not true. The price was exactly the same price, and not a special offer at all. This was simply done to change the date as well as the cancellation policy, in and of itself something a scammer would do. The message I had been sent was “the house was not ready”. I always assume that the houses listed on Airbnb are held to some sort of standard. In no way do I think that “not ready” is equivalent to “there will be construction workers with helmets building rooms and running around you filling your socks with dust.” I was given a date when everything should have been finished. There shouldn’t be any excuses on that point. It’s a business. I paid money. I expect things to be on time. If they are, the minimum response is to compensate and apologize. I tried explaining this to the case manager but he wouldn’t really do anything about it. He decided to give me a coupon for Airbnb and said that this was already above and beyond what I should get. I left with a feeling that I would rather spend my next twelve months of traveling with a different company. I advise you to do the same; there is not much added value for a middleman if he doesn’t help you once things get shady.

Here are some pictures of the apartment on the first day.

Airbnb Hosts in Cuba Can’t be Trusted

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First, the place was advertised as “Casa Jesus & Maria” and it looks and operates as a hostel (a bad one). I booked the place about three weeks in advance for two days and had been in contact with the host almost every week. The last message was exchanged only two days prior to our arrival and, at that moment, we were told that the room we were supposed to stay had been under construction for over a month. We arrived in Cuba at around 11:30 at night (the host was informed about this a week earlier) and were greeted by Jesus and Maria. We were promptly informed that they did not have a room for us. Maria ushered us in and, as if to prove her point, showed us a room with a scaffold inside and no furniture and claimed that the only reason why the room was not ready was due to heavy rain.

My friend and I were puzzled since it clearly looked like the room had been under construction for a while and they probably rented the room to us without it being ready. Worst of all, they probably knew very well that it was not going to be ready more than a day before our arrival and never told us about it. Maria informed us that she had arranged for us to stay somewhere else and that she was going to call the person to come pick us up. It was after midnight and we were stranded at some stranger’s place in Havana, without any local currency, and thinking that these people are really trying to screw us. Maria spent over 40 minutes on the phone, trying to find us another place since her arrangements did not follow through. They barely looked us in the eye while we were there and did not speak to us at all.

Finally, someone knocked at the door and we were escorted to another place by Ana. Ana’s place was definitely not in good shape and it was completely different from what we had signed up for. We were taken upstairs through these very narrow steps (our carry-ons barely fit) and shown an area with a queen bed and a bathroom without a door. The room was as big as the bed, the bathroom had no hot water, and the shared bathroom downstairs did not have a toilet seat. After we finally got ready to go to bed, about 2:30 AM, the bed broke. We had to move the mattress by ourselves since Ana was nowhere to be found. I had an asthma attack because the mattress was extremely dusty.

We woke up the next day and went back to our first host to try to give them a second chance; they had told us that they would have another room ready. Of course the room was not ready and we finally lost our cool. I told Maria that what they were doing to us was not fair and I wanted my money back. I did not raise my voice and spoke to her calmly. Maria got extremely upset and told me that if I wanted my money back I had to deal with Airbnb. We took off and, unfortunately, spent almost the whole day trying to find another place to stay. I speak fluent Spanish and all I could think of when all this was going on was: what if we did not speak the language? We would be even more desperate.

I called Airbnb and spoke with Kendra in customer service. She said that I was going to get a refund and that the incident was going to be “investigated”, that the host was going to be told to “honor the ads.” I was really expecting a little bit more of sympathy from Airbnb since this experience basically destroyed our vacation; we had only planned to stay in Havana for two days. I understand that Airbnb has little control over how hosts act but I was truly expecting more concern from the operator. I do not want anybody to go through what we have been through, especially if they do not speak the language. Now the host is threatening me with Airbnb messages. Needless to say, I had to dispute the charges with my credit card. I closed my account and will never use this service again.