Save yourself the time, money, and joy you will be stripped from. I’ve traveled around the world, stayed in hotels, hostels, and Airbnbs but have never in my life had such a terrible experience. What happened? Grab some popcorn, because this is a long one.
In all my years on Airbnb, I’ve only ever received five-star reviews from my hosts. Why is that? Because I’m a respectful, young adult that was raised with a sound moral compass.
The situation: I booked a stay at an Airbnb home in San Diego to take a break from work and relax for the weekend. The host had a pool, big backyard, and a nice home so it was the perfect scenario.
Little did I know that I was walking into a trap. From the moment I walked up to the house I was being watched and listened to on the ring camera and backyard cameras. Not only that, but within an hour of me being there, I get a text from the host stating that she was concerned because there was “a lot of movement” in the front yard. What was the movement? Myself and my friends unloading our groceries and bags going back and forth from the car.
Now I understand that hosts may get paranoid from time to time so I sent her a very nice text letting her know that we were simply unloading our cars. I even offered to give her a call so she could talk to me and have peace of mind that that was the case. After speaking with her for about 15-20 minutes, the host was supposedly relaxed.
The next day, we planned to sit by the pool, play corn hole, prepare some BBQ, and listen to some music from a small portable speaker. Just about what you do when you’re on vacation. To my surprise, I get a message from the host telling me that she got a noise complaint from the neighbors because we’re having a “party” and have too many guests. Keep in mind, I had let her know that during the day, we would have an additional two couples (four people) join us to hang out that were local.
If that’s a party, then don’t even bother bringing your family here because your kids might get arrested for having too much fun in the pool. Not only that, but I find it disturbing that we were constantly being watched through the camera. It felt invasive and weird. I felt like we were walking on egg shells the entire time instead of enjoying our stay.
I’ll finish with this. The host sent me a message on Airbnb mid afternoon telling me that we have to leave the property due to the complaint. No warning, Airbnb doesn’t contact me (which they have to according to their policies), nothing. So now we’re stranded in San Diego.
We end up having to book a hotel and still proceed to clean the house and grab our luggage so that it’s left in better shape that it was before. Our entire trip was ruined and on top of everything, the host is requesting $800 for “extra people and linens.”
P.S. She told us that she isn’t allowed to host vacation rentals in her neighborhood… weird.
you aren’t allowed to invite extra people over, that’s a breach of pretty much ALL host rules. Often voids insurance and if you go over 16 people Airbnb wont’ cover the host.
Were you playing rap on that speaker by any chance ? Either way people pay a lot of freaking money to buy houses in good neighborhoods . quiet neighborhoods. They work really hard to be able to live where they live and pay a lot in property taxes every year so when all these younger persons who likely don’t own their own homes come in and bring a big group or even small group with their big town college dorm or apartment living noise its upsetting and a nuisance.
Until you can actually afford to have your own home you cant just rent one and do whatever the hell you want and to hell with the neighbors because you paid money to stay there for a couple of nights.
Save your money for a house and then you can party and relax all you want , that is when you’re not having to get up and go to work early the next morning.
What the hell does “rap music” matter? Just say it- racists are entitled to be shielded from anything black or brown. The owner is to blame for the bs here if they’re not even allowed to have an AirBnB in their fragile neighborhood.