I am not sure who to reach out regarding my recent Airbnb stay in Anaheim. I am conflicted between leaving a negative review for my host or contacting Airbnb. Christine was responsive and genuinely a nice person when I meet her but the place that she hosted was not sanitary. She met with me and gave a quick tour of the studio. Upon entering, the studio had a pungent smell – hence the multiple candles and air fresheners in the room. The place looked clean but upon settling in, we found the bed was covered in white dog hair. We know it was dog hair because she drove away with her boyfriend and a small white dog. Luckily, my fiancé and I are not allergic to dogs. We found dog hair on top of the comforter and inside the bed under the sheets. We thought a quick fluff would do the trick but the bed was disgusting. As we removed the bed sheets, the mattress was yellow and brown and had nail polish on it. We found a fake purple press-on nail. The towels provided were gross. She said they were clean but they left purple lint on us as we dried off. The other towel was folded nicely on the counter; we turned it over to find crusted white stuff throughout the towel. We had to use our shirts to dry off. We checked in at midnight so we couldn’t find another place on short notice. Instead, we placed pillows on the floor to sleep. The next day, we ended up crashing at a friend’s house. I do not want to leave a negative review for the host, as she was super nice, but the place she listed was not Airbnb quality.
Tag Archives: airbnb cleaning
Cheap China Airbnb Host from Hell
I had been receiving kind and warm Airbnb experiences until one month ago when I was in a rush booking a room for myself. The problem was that I did not carefully check the comments left on the webpage about the house. I was desperately in need of a place to rest immediately somewhere as close to my company as possible. One Airbnb option captured my attention. It was cheap and it looked clean enough with a spacious bed for one person. Here is how it went with this host: she acted perfectly welcoming, meeting me at the beginning, giving me advice on settling in. But let me tell you, it was difficult to use the hot water to shower. Each time I did, the host complained she paid a lot for electricity and water, so why would I shower two times a day? She offered the same bar of soap for every guest, as well as a used disposable plastic bowl and chopsticks which she had left over from her meals. It was extremely disgusting and insanity.
Apart from this, she offered also a disposable napkin to wash the disposable cookware she offered. It felt like she not only intended to exclude me from her life but also implied I was a walking petri dish. Given the situation, I had literally no idea how I could use the disposable napkin to wash the disposable cookware without any dish gel at all. This apparently made her snap and she shouted: “No adults in world don’t know how to wash a dish! If you’re complaining that much get out of my place at once!”
She was pointing at my nose losing her temper. That night around midnight, she stood at my door, shouting “Please, get out of my place at once!” I thought she was breaking down or had some mental disorder. I called the police because there was no reason I should get out at the middle of the night after receiving threats. It makes me feel sick even just thinking about it. Here’s how the police solved the conflict. They recommended that the host give me a refund immediately and took me somewhere safe for the night. Away from this psycho host with her mental disorder. For more details about where this place is and what I did afterwards calling customer service, please leave comments.
Airbnb is a Joke: Dirty Disneyland Trip
Airbnb is a total joke. I strongly suggest no one use it. We booked a house for $1500 for our family Disneyland trip and the pictures of the house made it look awesome. However, when we showed up we realized immediately they had falsely advertised the place. It was listed as being on Disneyland Drive but that was not where it was. It was in a bad part of town where there were bars on every window and the neighborhood was trashy and run down. That wasn’t even that big of a deal. It was posted as a privately-owned condo but it was part of a rundown apartment building. In the listing it stated it had a washer and dryer in the condo but it was a separate laundry area for the whole apartment complex that you had to pay to use and stand there and wait for it to be done. The listing stated it had a two-car parking garage, but it did not. It had a small covered parking area that parked one car and it was so tiny our car didn’t fit in it without us having to climb out the back hatch of the car.
We drove around looking for alternative parking and the nearest place we could park was twelve blocks away. Twelve blocks of walking with kids after walking all day at Disneyland. The listing said the house slept ten, but there was no possible way to do that. The house was filthy. The walls were all scraped and scuffed and dirty, cobwebs were everywhere, there was a moldy shower curtain, drool stained the pillows, there were dirty used bars of soap and loofahs in the drawers and showers, no light bulbs were in any of the fixtures or lamps, clumps of hair filled the sink and drawers, the carpets hadn’t been vacuumed, the floors hadn’t been swept, coffee had been spilled on the counters and was dripping down the cupboards, the fridge was disgusting and made a super loud buzzing noise, and the neighbors were loud. You could hear people running through the other units. It was gross and dirty and nothing like it had been described. We left immediately, contacted Airbnb, and booked three last-minute hotel rooms which were expensive.
We followed the rules on filing a claim and getting a refund on the website and they wouldn’t refund us. The people lied about everything down to the location and we paid a cleaning fee on a house that definitely hadn’t been cleaned before we arrived. So how can they not refund us?
Disgusted Beyond Belief: Dirty Airbnb
Since Airbnb does not allow reviews on places if we leave I’m posting my story here. People may wonder why I tried so hard to make this work after reading my email. It was because I was exhausted and the thought of hauling our stuff down three flights of stairs and finding a hotel seemed like too much. I was a fool to try so hard. Here is the link to the property. Due to Airbnb policies not everyone gets to write a review which is why I was fooled.
Here is what happened. Prior to arrival, I called the host, and within 45 seconds of the conversation he said, “you can’t judge me.” I asked him why I would judge him and he said he was going through a breakup with a girlfriend and had lost his BMW. He said he had people judging him of late. If he means judging him based on what I’ve written below, then I guess I’m also judging him.
We arrived and texted Ryan, the host. He told us to come to a bar close by to get the key. My husband, Hanny, and I do not drink. It was 8:00 PM, and we were both tired. By the time we got the text we had already unloaded all of our luggage. We were not going to put it back into the car to find a bar, which Ryan told us to Google. I texted him back and informed him of this. After waiting some minutes without a reply from him, I called. He said he got the text and was on his way.
The complex he lives in does not know he is renting out space. I suspect this is not that unusual. We didn’t have a problem with that, but we also didn’t want to have to worry about what to say if approached. It was apparent the apartment had not been cleaned in some time. While not cluttered it was dirty. When we walked in, the table that should have been used for eating was not only dirty it had a dirty shirt in the middle of it. Ryan got us some towels, chatted for a few minutes and headed back to the bar and his date. We were tired and wanted to go to bed, so that was okay.
The bed was a whole issue within itself. It was missing a top sheet, and the bottom sheet showed clear signs of being dirty: nail clippings, popcorn kernels, and discharge. The pillow cases smelled of perfume. Hanny called Ryan to ask where we could find clean sheets. Ryan offered to come back, but we didn’t want to wait for him. He told Hanny where he could find the linens. He found one top sheet and a couple of pillow cases in a linen closet. I found another top sheet in our room. We were so tired we just wanted to make this work. So we stripped the bed and put on the two top sheets. Then we noticed the top sheet from the linen closet had something on it. Soap, hand lotion, who knows. At that point, I said screw this and pulled the sheets off and took them over to washer/dryer area. He had a huge mound of clothes on the machines that we had to move over to get the lid open. Inside was other clothes that I think might have been dirty. So I had to remove a stranger’s dirty clothes to wash our dirty sheets. There were also clothes in the dryer.
After starting the laundry, I went back to the room to unpack. Nothing had been dusted. The desk and the chest of drawers had a layer of dirt. I’m not picky here. I have a picture of a wet paper towel that shows the dirt I was wiping off so I could set our clean belongings on them. I went to use the toilet and found just a few squares that I could use. No other toilet paper was in that bathroom. Later, I took the roll from Ryan’s bathroom. After flushing the toilet with very little toilet paper in it, it went down and then came back up. When washing my hands, I could see the bathroom sink was not clean and the mirror was dirty. I went and got more paper towels to try to make things at least look clean. At this point very few paper towels were left. I used about ten squares in total, so there was not much on the roll. I went to put my fruit in the fridge. It was dirty. The stove top was dirty. The sink was full of dirty dishes.
I went to shower and found a dirty wash cloth hanging in there and a box that had used soap stuffed inside it. I chose not to shower. I went back into the bedroom and stepped on a dead worm. I put the dead worm on the kitchen table. I figured it wouldn’t matter since it was already filthy. I sent Ryan a text listing some of the conditions above and started packing. Hanny was about to call Ryan and tell him we were leaving when he came in due to the texts. Ryan’s unit is probably fine for young people who don’t care about basic cleanliness and want to hang out and party. For adults that are there for business, it was not so good.
Ryan kept trying to blame his cleaning lady, but I don’t think that room or unit had cleaned within the past two weeks. He could have stayed out of the bar and cleaned the unit knowing he had guests arriving. I tried to speak to him about taking responsibility and not playing the victim role. It was a waste of breath, and I was too exhausted to spend time having this conversation with him. He is too young and immature to be offering an Airbnb to anyone except his peers. He needs to change his post and stop claiming he is two blocks from the beach. While it is two intersections, it would take about 15 minutes. If you read his reviews, you will see to what I’m referring. He also has people going up three flights of stairs with their luggage. He doesn’t tell them about the elevator at the end of the hall. I think this is due to him not wanting people to notice what he is doing. He puts the onus on to his guests to ask these basic questions.
Terrible Bed, Dildo in Nightstand: Harsh Review
We booked a stay in an Airbnb for four nights in Toronto. The location was great. However, there were a few major issues:
- The bed was terrible. There was no box spring or support for the mattress, so it sagged badly.
- Not an inch of closet space or a single drawer was available.
- The apartment was not very clean.
- Living room was totally open and exposed for the neighbors to see; there were no blinds or curtains.
- The patio advertised in the listing didn’t have any furniture on it at all.
- Light bulbs went out and there were no replacements.
- The nightstand had dildos, vibrators and owner’s underwear inside.
I gave an average review on Airbnb. They cut my review and only posted the positive: the location. How would the next renter know about any of the problems? This is the second time I had a problem with an Airbnb rental. I’m not likely to rent through them again.
Host Lies About What Happened During Our Stay
I made a booking to stay at Surry Hill (Sydney) where Debbie was my host. However, in her review to me, she totally lied about what happened and blamed us for all the unpleasantness:
1. She sent me three messages through Airbnb, with general information about her place and how to get there. This was great, but later on during the message exchange, her information conflicted with that of previous messages, so I had to ask again to verify her information. In her review to me, she said that I did not read her email at all.
2. My reaction when she told me there was no lift or Internet in the house was “Ahh??” If that’s considered rude, I wonder what’s the definition of “surprise”? At the time my husband and I made that booking, we both saw the “elevator in the building” option available, but not Internet. However, when we checked again after moving in, that option was gone.
3. When we arrived, we noticed the house was clean, but the detergent she used left a strong odour in the house. We immediately opened all windows to air the unit out, because this is quite normal. After that, when we came back from dinner, the smell was not completely gone; there was still a strong smell near the bathroom, and in the kitchen. We texted the host to ask, but didn’t receive a reply. So we searched the house and noticed that the smell was coming from the dirty toilet, behind the toilet bowl, and from her spices in the kitchen. I spent an hour cleaning up the toilet, while my husband cleaned up the kitchen at the same time.
4. Our second night, when we came back, we heard a very loud humming sound all around the house. We called the host immediately. After three calls, there was no answer. So we went out to check the source of this sound, and noticed it happened to fill the whole block. Ten minutes later, when we already decided to use ear plugs to sleep, she finally called us and offered to help, saying that she’d contact management to settle it. I’m not sure what she did, but around an hour later, the whole block was in a blackout, and the humming sound only stop around 1:00 AM (one hour after the blackout), when my mother in law already passed her bedtime.
5. The next day, Debbie texted me to mention that the previous guest gave her an extremely high five-star rating, and mentioned that we could move out to the hotel across the road; she would give us the refund for the night we haven’t stayed. Although it appeared to be a fair offer, I found it ridiculous she mentioned other guests gave her five stars, which was no use to solve our problem, and also it’s not really fair as we all know how expensive hotels would be for an immediate booking. Therefore we did not take that offer, to save us time and hassle from the move.
6. On our last day, we cleaned the house as our general practice using Airbnb, but I made the mistake of forgetting the rubbish in the hall. I texted the hosts immediately because I already left the keys in the unit; I couldn’t access it to remove the rubbish. Both replied nicely that it was not a problem, which turned out to be a lie. She mentioned in her review as if I purposely left the rubbish in the hall.
I still gave her a good review because I thought it was my mistake forgetting the rubbish in the hall, but I regret my kindness now. The way she replied privately to me and publicly in the review gave me impression she’s a liar. This was my second try with Airbnb. Although the first try was wonderful, this second try really dissuaded me from using Airbnb again, and if there’s another host like that, I’d prefer to go back to traditional hotels.