Tag Archives: airbnb host lied

Infestation = $9 Refund on a $750 Charge

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My current Airbnb is not at all as described: there has been a carpenter ant infestation for the past week and a half where there are literally hundreds of them in the kitchen on the floor, shelves, and cabinets. I have been unable to cook because of it. In addition, there are cockroaches in the hallway and stairs.

The house is very dirty and under maintained overall. Many of the photos do not match the description. For example, there is supposed to be a “garden” in the yard but it is overrun with old chairs, wood planks, construction material, and leaf debris. The pool is empty, the “library” is a shelf with books covered in dust with broken glass on the floor (no joke), and the stove does not work as it was promised to be fixed on day two of my stay.

My host claims fees such as laundry or A/C are separate but in the description they were said to be included. I disputed this to Airbnb and I was switched to three different case managers in the process. They refused to give me a refund, and I left my Airbnb early (more like as soon as I possibly could). My Airbnb was $17/night. I left a full four days early and got back nine dollars in total.

The reason they dismissed my case is because the host provided “alternate photos” of dishes being left out, claiming this to be the cause for the hundreds of ants and cockroaches. My roommate and I never cooked in the kitchen because of the bugs; we wasted so much money on eating out because it was too disgusting to cook in there.

The son who lived in the house and used our kitchen always left dishes out – they were not ours. A few dishes does not result in the infestation of hundreds of vermin: only months of neglect, water damage, unfixed holes and leaks, and vile conditions will result in this. Absolutely ridiculous. I’ve been in touch with Airbnb and they immediately sided with the host.

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Serious Issues with the Water at Texas Airbnb

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This is my very first Airbnb “horror story” and I think it could have been resolved very easily with just some plain old fashioned honesty. I think it should be mandatory for hosts to disclose if there are any issues that might effect their guests’ health and their ability to function during their stay, particularly if they are trying to attend to any important issues from their room via phone.

I arrived late in the afternoon for my first day of a ten-day stay and as soon as I got into my room, I noticed there was a dog next door that barked continuously. The room next to mine was the owner’s daughter. She had locked up her dog and left. The little guy was letting everyone know he was very unhappy. This went on until well after 10:00 PM.

I did not notice anyone because I was busy unpacking, but the next morning when it started again, I asked the owner to please check on him. She explained that her daughter leaves him alone a lot and that she would let him out. Problem solved, or so I thought. Next morning… same routine.

By the third day the daughter decided to move to a larger unit, according to the owner. Great, peace at last, or so I thought. Now the owners have decided that this would be the very best time for them to remodel the newly vacated unit: time to break out the table saws, miter saws, mallets, and hammers and get busy.

The wall between my unit and the daughter’s newly vacated unit was maybe two inches thick with no insulation. The first day they started around 8:00 AM, they startled me so badly I had a severe anxiety attack within an hour. I asked if they were doing construction work and the host answered “Yes”.

I then asked her how long they would be over there doing this and she could not say. I told her I would need to check out that I could not function in any capacity with all that noise and asked her to please adjust my bill and refund the difference for the additional days. She informed me that there were no cancellations and no refunds, but that they would stop working on the unit. Which they did… for about four hours. Then they started up again.

In the interim, in the middle of the night, the toilet started gurgling and making hissing noises around 2:45 AM. It was so loud it woke me up out of a dead sleep. I jumped out of bed, tried to figure out what was going on with it, and discovered that a massive amount of air was hissing through the tube, so much so that the tube had come out of the cylinder it fit into, which water is supposed to be coming out of. The tank was almost empty.

After about 10-15 minutes of trying to resolve it, I just shut the water off at the valve line and it stopped. The next morning I checked it and turned it back on and everything seemed okay… until I turned on the water. Milky white liquid poured out of it continuously. I switched back and forth from hot to cold to see if it made any difference. Nope.

I contacted the host again. She had no idea what was going on. She said it just “looks dirty”. Hmmm… really? It looks like milk to me. I got distilled water for drinking but what could I use to bathe in?

The next day, there was no water at all. None. I contacted the host again. Amidst the banging, hammering, sawing and ongoing construction work, she advised me that there was no water in the entire city of Natalia, but she didn’t want to tell me because she did not want to “disturb” me.

By now, I was highly suspicious, so I just Googled “Natalia Texas Water Services” and up pops every alert and health risk related alerts you could imagine, including asbestos in their water system. By now I was mortified and resolved to contact Airbnb with requests for refunds and go elsewhere for the remainder of my trip.

That afternoon the water came back on but it was still milky white. I was not taking any chances with my health, so I refrained from using their water at all except to flush the toilets. Now I have to find another place to shower and bathe and forego having any phone conversations from my room because of the noise.

All of this could have been easily avoided with just an honest disclosure from the owners. If they had mentioned there would be ongoing construction next door to me, I would have politely declined, but that never happened. Nor were there any health-related disclosures about the water. Although they did have a pitcher with a filter in the refrigerator, no mention was ever made of why or what types of contaminants the pitcher filtered out.

All of this should have been disclosed to anyone considering staying there so that they could determine whether or not it would be a hindrance or issue for them or their health. Before anyone chooses to stay in Natalia Texas, I urge you to simply Google the water issues they have had and then choose wisely. As for me, I think I will pass.

I would deeply deeply appreciate a response from Airbnb on this matter as I only have a few days before I leave this review on their site as well along with a video of the running water coming out milky for several minutes.

My Wife Hosted our Home. Didn’t Tell Me

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Back in 2016 my wife told me about Airbnb and said she would like to host our house. Nothing else was said until she was very adamant that we take off just to get away one weekend. When complications came up, she was forced to admit she had rented out our house “just to try it”. Well I was upset that she would do such a thing without telling me. We had a pretty serious discussion about my opinion, and her honesty.

Fast forward to 2017. She wanted to go on an extended weekend trip and I just could not because of work. Well she played hurt, then angry. On Friday she said, “Well, let’s just stay at a local motel.”

I thought that was pretty odd and she gave all kinds of excuses to be out of the house. Finally she admitted she had booked our house for the weekend. I was furious she did this again. This time I asked her to let me have access to her account and I found three more bookings in the next two months.

I wrote Airbnb explaining the situation and they said they couldn’t help me because I wasn’t on the account. “It’s a problem between you and your wife,” they said.

“True,” I said, “But I own the home!”

When I asked if it would be their problem if I turned the guests away, they still said nothing. They would not get involved. After a heated argument and with guests arriving in the morning, I submitted to moving out for the weekend if she closed her account with Airbnb and cancelled all of her booked guests. She did and promised me she would always talk to me before making any decisions like that.

Fast forward to this weekend. Same story. “Let’s get away for the week” prefaced by furious house cleaning. I came to find out that she had not deleted her account and in fact booked our house for the weekend… and every weekend during the months of June and July and one in August. My whole summer is booked with me away from our lake home.

I am stunned. I am calling Airbnb on Monday but I can guess their answer. My options? Refuse to let the guests in or maybe try and contact them and give them warning? Airbnb won’t get involved.

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Airbnb Bait and Switch, Fake Reviews

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We had a lot of problems with an Airbnb house in Houston. When I kindly told the host to fix the following problems he got extremely aggressive.

A few days before arrival, the host has switched the property. The property I initially booked is no longer listed on Airbnb. I paid more than double the price, as the host was asking for the new listing. The new listing said that it was located in a historic, quiet neighborhood. However, it was located in a run-down neighborhood.

The other neighbor had three big dogs (five feet away from the bedroom) which barked all day and night. We were always waking up and it felt very uncomfortable.

The TV did not work. When we arrived, the Internet TV had no power cable and it was not installed with the router. The stove and oven did not work either, because the gas meter was locked by the gas company. After two days, we had no more access to the laundry room.

As of April 1st, 2018, Texas law dictates that any residential and commercial structures with both sleeping areas and gas or fuel-burning appliances must install and properly maintain carbon monoxide alarms. However, there was only a cheap smoke detector, no carbon monoxide and no fire extinguisher. The host was very reluctant to solve these problems.

Without getting a review from me, the host was giving me a totally bad review, without reason. However, in the last email to me he wrote: “It was a pleasure hosting you! We will be certain to leave a great five-star review for your stay. If you ever come back, please let us know and give us the chance to accommodate you again. A five-star review for us as hosts is very important for our business. Please don’t forget to give us that.”

After checking the reviews of the listing, I discovered they were all fake.

Airbnb Room had Bedbugs and I got Fined

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I stayed at an Airbnb in New Orleans and woke up to find find dead bedbugs and casings in the box spring. The host responded by wiping away the evidence and threatening to come after me for damages if I told anyone. I sent photos of the bedbugs and audio tape I had taken of her admitting there were no damages.

As part of the claim she ended up filing against me, which included a $75 fee for putting the mattress back on the bed (which I had even offered to do for her), she submitted a clearly falsified letter from a fake exterminator, which Airbnb even admitted to me they knew was fake. Somehow they still charged me $75.

Can you imagine going to a hotel, complaining that you found bedbug remnants, and having them respond by falsifying documents, attacking you, and then fining you? This company has zero customer service.

Airbnb doesn’t even have the “essentials”

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Earlier I went to Oaxaca City in Oaxaca, México, staying at a serviced (not really) apartment listed on Airbnb. Since it was so cheap, I wasn’t really expecting anything. When I saw that there wasn’t a table or a desk at all (despite what’s shown on the listing), I wasn’t bothered since I wouldn’t really be using a laptop anyway.

However, they had almost none of the so-called “essentials”. They had no soap… fine. They didn’t have any towels at all; I literally had to go out to buy one. No toilet paper either – in fact, they didn’t even have a toilet seat.

I’m guessing they are called “essentials” because Airbnb does require all hosts to have them. They didn’t, and when I told Airbnb that, they didn’t say or do anything. As you can see, they still say they have all these things. Perhaps they’ve gotten better now, or maybe nothing had happened. Who knows?

New Airbnb Policy: Believe Hosts’ Lies

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I booked an Airbnb recently that claimed to have air conditioning. I showed up to the place, and inside it’s hot, steamy, and muggy. I called the host to ask how to turn the air conditioning on. His reply to me was that it was broken and to crack a window. I told him I was going to contact Airbnb for a refund.

The agent explained to me she had to verify with the host what I was claiming was true. She called the host and called me back letting me know that the host does not turn the air conditioning on until summertime… all the while it is 80 degrees. I asked if Airbnb condones posting amenities that are not available. Turns out, according to this agent, they do.

She completely sided with the host. By that logic, any host can post whatever amenity they want then claim the amenity isn’t available during whatever season you’re booking their place and let you know after you have paid and arrived.

Sorry we had to break up like this Airbnb…

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I was just reading the sad reviews from the property owners. Can I tell you that the same thing happens to renters? I will spare you the details (trust me, you don’t want to hear them), but suffice it to say we had 13 excellent stays on Airbnb before we met the first property owner extortion machine.

We’ve always been model guests, and have always cleaned the premises before leaving – to the point my girlfriend makes fun of me about it. It turns out that in cleaning the kitchen, we “scratched” the stainless steel backsplash. The host demanded (not making this up) $900 for a full replacement of an item that was likely made out of too soft an alloy for the purpose. Go figure.

In true Airbnb fashion, they charged my credit card against my wishes ($500). Let me tell you – I had called my bank a few days before to block Airbnb from doing this because they are notorious for charging renters without consent. My bank (Chase) screwed up and did not block the charges as promised.

Take my advice: if you anticipate a dispute with Airbnb and you don’t want to go chasing your own money, cancel your card after your stay. We will not be returning to Airbnb as we do not feel like we were treated fairly on this one. Sad, because we had such a good run for a while.

Did I mention the undisclosed spy camera at the last place we rented? Apparently Airbnb doesn’t really care about that. If you take your chances, good luck.

Everything Went so Wrong, No Help from Airbnb

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Sorry if this is too vague, but I can check and verify all the details later if needed. I’m sure I don’t remember even half what happened. It was the summer of 2017, and I was on one of the Canary Isles – Teneriffe – with two boys, aged 18.

It was out of season, but surprisingly, most of the Airbnb hosts were also on holiday. There were not many options for staying, specially when we drove through the mountains. We found a normal looking house, and paid for two or three nights.

The host was suppose to be fluent in several languages, but when we arrived, he was so nervous that he couldn’t say more than ten words. The ceiling of one room was covered in kerosene, and the smell of chemicals was toxic. We opened the windows, and waited half an hour.

The bedroom heater was a humidifier, not a heater at all. Many places were so dirty that they were impossible to touch. There were no cups or plates in the kitchen (two mugs were shattered, and leaked tea on the table).

We could not sleep, because rats or rodents were living in the ceiling, drywall, and roof. There were ten more small things that weren’t so urgent, but were annoying/broken, etc).

We left early the next morning, after sleeping in our cold car outside. The host denied everything, and we didn’t even get a refund.

Airbnb handled the matter really badly. They asked for photos; we had photos of ten other things, but not the rats. The house was partly renovated, but attached to another half that was in ruins. Many areas were unsafe and not suitable for human habitation.

I’m 50 years old, and this was truly one of the worst experiences of my life, concerning places to sleep. The most concerning factor was Airbnb unable to offer any help , guidance, advice or anything.

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Shameful Scam Condoned by Airbnb Staff

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I stayed at an Airbnb for three nights in February paying £1300 and thinking the outdoor Jacuzzi was included in this price. A few months after and just before Christmas, the manager asked for £250 to be paid directly to her for use of the outdoor equipment. I did not pay as I felt uncomfortable with the request and Airbnb recommended not do to do this type of transaction. The manager shared with me that she was fed up with Airbnb because “they have to accept bookings”.

Before leaving we ensured the house was tidy and in good order. The manager advised cleaners would be arriving at 11:30 AM after we had left but everything was left clean. The microwave was only used for sterilizing baby bottles but a very dirty picture was produced when a claim for £500 was made. Cigarette butts were all over the grounds and my sister cleared some away.

We were accused of leaving these and a difficult to see photo of a butt was evidence. A bed was shown with a mattress cover very stained. A clean sheet could be seen on the floor. It’s horrible to think only one clean sheet covered the staining and that one of us slept on that bed. The £500 claimed by the host manager was for a new mattress, mattress cover, pillows, cleaning of the microwave, and picking up the cigarette butts.

Airbnb did not contact me (they have my phone and email details) and agreed without consultation to a payment of £250. I cannot describe how angry I am right now but really want to warn others who might book this property. The photos were not dated. I think the manager was miffed we did not pay for the Jacuzzi and so got her money another way – a shameful scam. I have attached the picture, a very odd colour of red and green staining. We are all very worried who got this horrid bed if indeed it was in the house we rented.