Suspended as a Host and Guest Following AC Incident

We went to Todos Santos, Mexico to relax and unwind staying at an Airbnb. However, Airbnb turned that into the most stressful week of our lives.

We have a cabin on our property in British Columbia that my wife rents out on Airbnb. However, she has had her account suspended from Airbnb by the safety department. She has done nothing but be a role model for Airbnb and worked hard to make the cabin a success since 2014 with a rating of 4.9. She has a faithful clientele who are left wondering what has happened with her suspension. In fact, some people were evicted by Airbnb mid stay.

We have been wracking our brains to understand this “incident” that involves the Airbnb safety team that caused us to be permanently removed from the Airbnb site. We have spent hours on the phone and writing emails pleading with Airbnb staff to tell us explicitly what the “safety” issue was and we still don’t know. After piecing together various snippets of information we inferred that the incident relates to the fact that the air conditioner in the main bedroom of the house we rented in Mexico through Airbnb did not work when we arrived so we stayed in another room (called the studio) that had a functioning air conditioner. Evidently we weren’t supposed to stay in this room. Little did we know that she was she was renting it out separately on Airbnb but for some reason we were given a key.

We were not given any alternatives by the host so we decided to stay in this studio until the air conditioner was fixed. We told the host the situation and our plan that we were happy to move into the main house when the AC was fixed (which we did). I am sure she was not very happy with this as she lost some income but our options were limited. Why should we get a hotel room when we had already paid for our accommodation? We weren’t about to suffer in the heat (it was 86 degrees F).

Given that absolutely no solution was offered by the host, we stayed in the studio. The host could have immediately got on the case and arranged for a technician to fix it but instead she waited two days. We moved in to the main bedroom as soon as the AC was fixed after four days. If this is the incident, it is hardly a safety issue warranting suspension of an account and ruining people’s livelihoods, but it has.

But there’s more. The main bedroom air conditioner broke down again after a couple more days. The host does not live near Todos Santos and we had to be present to let the technician in for the three visits to the house that the technician made, totally messing up our day and our holiday. We refused to go through the same hassle having to stay around so we left, requesting a refund for the last three days. I have not heard from the host or Airbnb on this request. Instead we were suspended. Irate does not come close to describing our emotions.