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?