Location so horrible we couldn’t even stay and might not get our 889$ back!!!

Here is my mom’s and my family recent Airbnb bad experience in London and we didn’t even end up staying at the property!!! This is our letter to Airbnb Corporate. “Dear Airbnb, I am writing this letter to file a formal safety complaint against the Airbnb listed property: 1 Court Street, London, E1 United Kingdom. My family of 4 and I had a reservation for the property for 4 nights (June 17-June 21st 2015). I booked the property because the pictures looked nice and clean and it stated it was fairly close to the Tower of London. This was also an expensive property, totaling at $889 for 4 nights. Never being to London before, I did not know what areas of London were nice and safe and was trusting Airbnb and the Host that the area the property was in was going to be safe. When my family got out of the tube station (Whitechapel), we quickly realized that this was not a family friendly and safe area at all. We walked down to where the property and realized that there was no way we could stay there and feel safe. The apartment was down an alley way that was having construction done. The area was extremely noisy and crowded. The property in London was in the middle of a street marketplace. It would be very noisy and difficult to move in and out of the property. The whole purpose of getting a property via Airbnb was to get a “family friendly” property, not sleep in a high crime street marketplace. I did text the owner saying that an emergency had popped up. I cannot believe that he never called or responded back to us. Due to this, it completely disturbed our whole London trip. Since it was last minute, we could not find any reasonable accommodations in London and ended up having to travel to south England to my daughter’s apartment in Bournemouth, England. My husband and son had been very sick for days and needed to be in a safe and comfortable environment. They also needed to see a doctor the day we arrived. They had to travel to Bournemouth to see a doctor and ended up having to go to the hospital. We can provide documentation from the hospital if necessary. Later, I researched the Whitechapel area in London and found out that it is one of the top violent and sexual crime hotspots according to the LessCrime Report ( http://lesscrime.info/londons-violent-crime-hotspots/). I also looked at the official London Police website and found out that each month this specific area has one of the highest number of incidents and crimes in all of London (http://www.police.uk/metropolitan/00BGGN/crime/). I am very upset and disappointed with fact that Airbnb allowed this property to be listed. Airbnb should have a description of the local area. Airbnb needs to send someone to check the property out personally and they will see for themselves the security concern. My daughter used Airbnb several times across Europe to travel and recommended this to me. She had no safety concerns or major issues at the properties that she stayed at. We also had a bad experience with an Airbnb property in Paris. After this horrible experience that messed up our entire London trip and we paid the whole 889$!, I do not believe that I will ever use Airbnb again. Know that I will be sending this letter to every corporate Airbnb email I can find, will share it on many social media sites, and will make sure that none of my family and friends use Airbnb. I do believe that we should receive a refund because we booked the property under false pretenses and we did not stay at the property at all. I do not want what happened to my family to happen to another. Please send someone to this property or have it removed from your site so that this never happens to another family.

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One Comment

  1. I’m not seeing the problem with Airbnb here:
    You failed to research Whitechapel before traveling. Airbnb does not restrict properties to certain neighborhoods only, this is part of the appeal – a variety of options available. London is a major international city. Of course there will be a lot of crime and some bad areas. The first thing you should do before traveling is research “family friendly neighborhoods London,” for example, if that’s a priority for you, and then restrict your search to those in that area.

    It is not Airbnb’s fault that your husband and son were sick or that you are unwilling to stay in a “noisy and crowded” area in a major city (there’s a good bet that unless listing and reviews specifically indicate that they are a quiet oasis, a listing in the midst of a big city will be both noisy and crowded.)

    I am sorry your trip went so poorly but I see nothing here to indicate that Airbnb is the problem.

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