Tag Archives: airbnb host

Airbnb: Lying and Disrespectful Host

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I have been renting homes on Airbnb for the past three summers, so I have had my fair share of landlords who are normally very nice and engaging, some who even come by before or after to meet the tenants. Brin was rude and unaccommodating the entire weekend. We were charged a cleaning fee but when we arrived the place was covered in dust and dead bugs. The pots needed to be cleaned and the house was not stocked. For starters, there was half a roll of paper towels in the entire house and that was it. I could understand this had we been informed that we needed to stock supplies other than groceries but per his confirmation the cleaner would have cleaned up from the guest the night before and the place would be stocked with supplies; we only needed food.

After we wiped things down and tried to settle in, we headed out to the pool only to found that it was filthy and gross. After a number of times reaching out to Brin to ask when they would come clean the pool and make it usable, we received a message stating “The pool cleaner will not come until next week, but you can use the skimmer to clean it yourself…” Excuse me? No, we paid for a pool, a clean pool, and a clean and stocked house. At that point Brin stopped replying and refused to answer any calls to resolve these and other concerns/issues. So basically he lied: we were the first group to start the rental season and the landlord did not bother to clean or stock the house or pool.

Other things to note: the upstairs bathtub did not drain properly so you would be standing in water that covered your feet. He then lied when we reported him, saying we just wanted a discount, but he did not have proof because the discount was asked for in person… He never came to the house, nor did he make an effort to rectify the issues with his tenants who paid to rent his home. So basically he took the money and disappeared. Very disappointing and I would never recommend this location to anyone in the future. All we asked for was a clean pool and a lot less attitude and the other issues would have been less noticeable but instead we were handed the pompous, disrespectful, liar Brin.

Airbnb Doesn’t Care About its Hosts

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What a joke! Airbnb offers hosts a “house manual”, but I recently discovered that once a guest has paid, they can do, say, or wear anything they wish. I put everything in my house rules – which the guest apparently chose not to read – and he got cozy with the neighbors (after I asked him not to), didn’t clean up after himself, did about 20 loads of laundry (in 12 days), took three showers a day, and bitched that I didn’t have sports on my TV. In addition, he told me stories about his crazy ex-girlfriend. He finally had to go, but I found damage to my computer desk (I took photos beforehand showing no damage), my house reeks of cheap cologne, and my neighbors know things about me that I didn’t share.

Airbnb Kyoto: Not Everything in Japan is Pristine

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Our first booking was cancelled by the owner, and it took some persistence to get the money refunded on our return. Our second booking in Kyoto, Japan turned out to be ghastly. The “owner” had a profile picture 0f his baby in his arms with a spiel about how friendly he was, how much he loved the neighbourhood, and how he would let people know all the good places to eat! We never saw him! The apartment was not clean, and the bedding was appalling. No spare linen, and it looked like the linen had not been washed – there were only two pillows with cases, and one of them was dirty. For the price, it was sub-standard accommodation, even for Kyoto, and the only people who may not have complained would have been five backpackers sharing the price. Never again. The shower, which was always damp, was a haven for footrot, and there was barely enough light. The only thing which worked was the wifi, which was good enough to check out some good hotel accommodations in the area and get the hell out of there. I selected this because it was close to the railway station – it would have been preferable to have slept at the station.

Edinburgh Fringe Festival: Airbnb Hell

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We booked a stay with a couple in Edinburgh for the 2015 Fringe Festival. It was our first experience using Airbnb. Although the room looked nice in the photos and was fine in real life, it turned out the young couple renting the room were renting themselves – evidently from a very cruddy landlord – and had decamped to the lounge for the Fringe in their one-bedroom flat (up six flights of stone steps). We therefore had access to a cramped and windowless kitchen and a cramped and windowless bathroom only. The water pressure was ridiculously weak throughout the flat and the WC didn’t flush without pouring a bucket of water (which took ages to fill from the low pressure taps) into the cistern. The shower also leaked, as did the wash hand basin.

The couple were obviously getting drunk every night on their rent money from us and the woman barged into our room one night and nearly got into bed with us, evidently having forgotten they had rented their room out! They also needed to go through our room to get to their washing machine, which was in a tiny room behind the bedroom. The kitchen was very poorly equipped and we were given nothing with which to wash up and no space to put our breakfast things. The man was pleasant enough but his partner was sullen and avoided us. Luckily we were out most of the time at shows or our stay would have been unbearable. They had the cheek to press for a review when we left, but we felt the kindest thing to do was say nothing as we had nothing good to say about our stay. Never again!

Stranded by Airbnb after a Rock Festival

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My daughter took her first trip out of the country and booked Airbnb for a rock festival… the host never showed up, never emailed her, and didn’t even have the decency to answer her phone! She, of course, phones home in a panic, after hours of phone calls to Airbnb, calling hotels in the area (of course nothing was available – it was a rock festival weekend!) thinking she and her friend will be on the street, crying and upset! Worst experience ever! Three hours later and still, nothing happened! Airbnb said they will refund her money but when someone needs a place to stay what help is that! My advice: STAY AWAY!

More Protection than Guests: Airbnb is Untouchable

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We booked a stay in Ha Noi, Vietnam, by the beach based on the blurb and pictures posted by the host. Although their ad left us a little confused as to what it was exactly – a homestay or bnb or hotel or ? – in both the written word and in the pictures, it had ticked enough boxes for us to send the host a few questions about connecting rooms and shared amenities, etc. The host was a little vague but sounded genuine enough for us to make the booking. Some six weeks later the host contacted us stating that several recent guests had complained that the hosts had not advertised what they were offering correctly and that we might want to cancel the booking. So, we asked some very specific and clear questions about the accommodation, always being mindful of the difference in languages. The responses were even more vague than our earlier attempts. It made us feel very uneasy and we asked the host to cancel the booking, which the host had suggested in their correspondence, and tried to find a way of contacting Airbnb for a refund.

When we found out that it was not going to be possible to contact Airbnb about this matter we wrote to the host. Disappointingly but predictably, she wrote back telling us that she could not and it would be up to us to do so and chase up a refund. At the end of all this I find myself $80 out of pocket, but even worse very disappointed in the completely unethical manner in which this huge company – Airbnb that is – hides behind the Internet curtain of anonymity. I cannot in good conscience use or recommend a company that has carefully engineered a site that supports a modus operandi that leaves aggrieved users out of pocket and doesn’t even give them a chance to sort out problems that were not the guests’ fault. In my case they will lose much more than the $80 I lost in this unfortunate deal.

Early Contact with Aggressive Airbnb Host

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After great experiences with Airbnb 95% of the time, I had a truly horrible experience with a host today in Brisbane. I booked an apartment automatically – no contact with the host – so I then messaged them to confirm I would collect the key on Thursday afternoon and also ask what time we could leave on Sunday. There was no reply and I was flying up to Brisbane at lunchtime to stay with a friend. I wanted to have the details on the keys to print before I left – I called the number given and left a message. Then a man rang back on my phone. He did not introduce himself but was very rude about the fact that I called and shouted, saying “he would call in a few hours.” I asked why it was not possible to confirm the details on getting the keys now. He replied they would “get back to me when they felt like it.” Then he accused me of being “too wound up for their liking and I should cancel the booking.”

His tone was then very aggressive, very rude, and to be frank, scared me. Details of access are usually provided asap after the booking so I was not being unreasonable plus this man really frightened me especially as he now has my mobile number and has rung twice and hung up then rang again and yelled at me for having the nerve to message the site to say I felt I was put in a position where I had to cancel and I was advising Airbnb that another person was accessing the account and making rude phone calls. I therefore will have to pursue a formal complaint as it looks like this is the only way I will get my money back given their unreasonable behaviour and cancellation policy. Anyone thinking of booking in Brisbane: message me first and I will advise which apartment this is, so as to not give yourself the scare I had.

Speak to Real People with Airbnb Customer Service?

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There is zero information available about contacting Airbnb to get help from a live person. This has been apparent to me on the pages of Airbnb as I attempted to learn precisely how to list my home. I even attempted to create a listing but the process halted after the system could not “verify” two different phone numbers. The Help Center is worthless to a person with a problem that does not fit the pre-configured scenarios the geniuses at Airbnb can think up. Most tellingly, no “Contact” button/menu item is available so it is apparent Airbnb is nothing but an extension of the Borg. Only this limited interaction “feedback” with zero interactivity is offered.

Well guess what? The sheer arrogance and/or elitism of Airbnb personnel simply screams from the site. No, you can not think of all issues and place them in an endless series of dropdowns, and no, like hell am I going to play Simon Says guessing games to pass through the hoops Airbnb has provided. The industry is flooded with venture capital to build systems to smash smug assholes who operate Airbnb and my money and more importantly, time, will be spent elsewhere. So, why am I bothering writing this here? Just using it as a temporary pad to jot down my review of Airbnb before finding a spot to publish it.

Airbnb: Worth Complaining if Nothing is Done?

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Most horror stories centre around a cabin in the woods… mine is about an apartment in Nashville. But, same difference. Bit of background: my sister and I started planning a trip to America (we live in the UK) for her 30th birthday. Our trip gradually grew and grew as we started adding more places thinking ‘ah, that’s not far…’ and before we knew it we were travelling thousands of miles across the country. We started in New York then flew down to Washington, on to Nashville, Los Angeles, and finished in Las Vegas. Having used Airbnb many times before, we decided to make that our first search for accommodation. We went for a hotel in New York and Vegas (as it was, surprisingly, cheaper) but we booked Airbnb accommodation for Washington, Nashville and Los Angeles. Our stays in Washington and Los Angeles were fantastic; absolutely nothing to complain about. Nashville, however, is a different story…

We chose an apartment right on Broadway, in the centre of all the action so that we could get out and see as much live music as possible, as was the opportunity described in the listing – ‘immerse yourself in a world of honky-tonks where locals, musicians and the music industry executives hang.’ Live music, there was not. The bar next door to the apartment building played very loud, very bad, hip-hop music ‘til 5am. We were less than impressed. The noise, however, is not where my complaint lies…

This is the link to the listing in question. It’s called ‘MIDTOWN: BARS, MUSIC & HISTORY!!’ Blake – the owner of this apartment – had sent us an email the day before our stay was scheduled to begin saying that he would leave the key – I won’t say where, as I don’t want him to be burgled, no matter how angry I am – and to text him when we had arrived. Firstly, he failed to provide a number on which to reach him. Secondly, we both had UK mobile phones and couldn’t get a signal to ring even if we had had his number. So, we sent him a message through the Airbnb site letting him know we had checked in and asking a couple of questions… Firstly, he claimed in his listing that he had wifi… we tried to find a connection that looked like it could belong to the apartment but couldn’t. We had a look around to see if we could find a wi-fi box, but had no luck there either. Secondly, we needed to stock up on some basic supplies for the week so we asked him where the nearest shop was.

He replied some time later that day (obviously he was not that bothered about being a good host) and his response was thus: ‘Hi!!! So sorry for the delay – my phone has seemingly been without great service. We have been out at the vineyard this afternoon. For wifi use *** …’ I have omitted the wifi details because, as it turned out, Blake does not have wifi; he simply piggy-backs off the connection from the bar next door. This, in my opinion, does not constitute the provision of wifi. Glad to hear that he had had a good afternoon at the vineyard, though… We left our luggage in the apartment and went out to explore. When we initially arrived we climbed the fire escape stairs, as per Blake’s instructions, but as there was a noticeable amount of broken glass and rubbish at the rear of the building we opted to exit out of the front. Any better? Well, the main front door to the building did not lock; it didn’t even close. Not very safe and secure…

When we returned later that evening we had more time to actually have a look around. Wishing we had done so before, we discovered that the apartment was, quite frankly, filthy. A thick layer of dust covered every surface, the oven and hob (editor’s note: stovetop) clearly hadn’t been cleaned for quite some time and the bathroom… well, I have lived in student accommodation that was cleaner. The bathroom was painted black and Blake seemingly uses these black walls on which to write messages to his guests (no other welcome pack or leaflets were provided, just the graffiti). There were directions to a fried chicken joint alongside the message ‘sorry the shower is old’. ‘Old’ I can cope with. ‘Old’ is acceptable. ‘Old’ is how I would describe my parents’ 1850s cottage. ‘Old’ is not what this shower was. This shower was revolting. Neither of us even wanted to set foot in the bath tub for fear of needing another shower on exit. Not only were there hairs in the bath (a common occurrence and, admittedly, difficult to get up every single one) but the mat inside the bath which, in a past life had started out as white, was pink with grime and dirt.

Continuing on in the bathroom: the toilet, when sat on, came away from the wall. If the fear of catching a disease wasn’t enough to turn the most avid sitters into stoopers, the fear of potential drowning certainly was. The sink was covered in a thick layer of dust and grime. The bathroom floor hadn’t been cleaned for a considerably long time. The only thing that we could say, with some degree of certainty, had been ‘cleaned’ prior to our arrival were the bedsheets. Bravo, Blake, you changed the bed. Although the bed cover had a giant grease stain on the top, so maybe my praise was premature… As it was rather late when we noticed all of this, we decided to grit our teeth and stay one night. Obviously, with the bar next door playing music ‘til 5am, it wasn’t a very restful night. First thing in the morning, we discussed the best action to take. As we had had no physical contact and very little virtual contact with Blake, we were very reluctant to contact him with our complaint. He certainly didn’t seem a very hands-on host and as we were two women alone in a strange city, we really didn’t fancy the thought of confronting him.

We made the decision to find somewhere else to stay and sent Blake a message explaining the situation in full and that we had decided to leave. As it was last minute and there were events on in Nashville, we struggled to find anywhere with availability so ended up paying out substantially more money for a hotel. As well as informing Blake of the whole situation, we made an official complaint to Airbnb. This is where the fun starts. The response we had from Blake: ‘Hey – so sorry that the place was not up to your standards! I certainly did clean it thoroughly. There is a wifi extender in the unit – so all works. Please make sure to cancel your reservation and I will reimburse you for days that are able to be rebooked. Again, very sorry that the place did not meet your standards!’

Standards. I will be the first to admit that I have standards. It is not, however, unreasonable to have a standard of cleanliness. I am not asking for the place to be immaculate; when you have a fast turnaround of guests it is not always going to be possible to clean every spec of dust. I am not asking for that. I am simply expecting, as a paying guest, a basic standard of cleanliness. But this apartment simply had not been cleaned, and he is now lying to us saying that it had. Airbnb responded to my complaint and requested photo evidence, which I gladly sent over. As Blake had volunteered to refund us for the days that he was able to rebook, I reiterated this to Airbnb who proceeded to cancel the reservation on our behalf to enable others to book Blake’s listing. Straight away, Airbnb refunded us their service fee as they didn’t want to ‘benefit from the uncomfortable situation.’ Isn’t that nice?

That’s really where the niceties end, unfortunately… ‘Although [the photos] do show significant dust and a messy oven, these are issues that your host may have been able to attend to had he been offered the chance. Because the cleanliness concerns aren’t egregious, I won’t be able to supply you with a mandated refund from your host aside from the cleaning fees, which I wanted to make sure you received given your predominant concerns.’ We were advised to set up a case through the Resolution Centre which is their formal route of requesting a refund. I filled this out in detail and this request went through to Blake himself, not Airbnb.

Unsurprisingly, our request was declined… ‘Jennifer – I’d like to apologize again that this apartment was not up to your standards. I can assure you that the place [is] very clean — however, as mentioned in the listing – the building is over a hundred years old and is quite creaky and aged. Airbnb is a wonder[ful] community with PLENTY of options. I hope you are able to be more selective next time and find something that meets your tastes. If you ever come back to Nashville, I will be more than happy to help recommend something. I have told Airbnb that I will refund the cleaning fee since this was the cause of your concerns. Sidenote: upon my arrival to the unit after your departure, both doors were closed and locked. The door operates as any standard door would — I’m glad you figured it out!’

To start, in my initial complaint about the cleanliness I made a point of stating ‘although we understand that the building is old and this can provide reason for cracks in walls, etc’… to make sure that he knew we weren’t complaining about the age of the building. Clearly he did not read this as he seemed to assume we were complaining about the creaks… I also added that ‘the main front door to the building does not lock or even close’ – is this not clear that I am referring to the ‘main front door to the building’ and not the apartment door? I thought so, too. So now not only is he refusing our request for a refund, he is insulting our intelligence. The added sarcasm just made my blood boil even more. Game on. Another email back to Airbnb stating my dissatisfaction in Blake’s response, his sarcastic language and our refusal to back down. I stated that we were willing to pay for the night that we stayed and also the second night as that would have been extremely difficult for him to re-let – more than reasonable, in my opinion. But the other five nights (yes, we were staying for a whole week) we wanted back.

Annoyingly, as were travelling back from America to the UK, I was unable to check my email in time before the 24 hour (yep, that’s all they give you) time limit to respond to Airbnb had expired. So, on our return I had to open a new case to enable me to continue with my complaint. I asked if Airbnb had a policy to go out and inspect a listing that had a complaint against it… ‘When it comes to hosts and listings we have multiple internal routes and tools that we use to ensure unwanted ones are removed. Once this case is closed I will be sending the details of the case and a team will be following up with them directly. This often requires additional steps from the host and does not guarantee a host’s future within our community. We do not have people go out to listings to personally inspect them but instead we go off of reviews set by past guests. I am able to search the host’s end of things and see if there is a pattern worth nothing and in this case, there was none found. The many reviews reflect that the listing worked greatly for people due to the location and there are a good amount of people who said the apartment itself was great.’

That’s not entirely true. I had another look after – something I wished I had done before – and there are several reviews that mention the cleanliness and even one guest who described the apartment in very similar words to me, and had even requested a refund only to be denied. I told them this, and their response… ‘Thanks so much for your patience throughout this process. We appreciate the time you’ve taken to share your concerns with our team. However, we have issued our final decision for this case and we will disengage from further discussion on this topic. We’re truly passionate about providing our community of hosts and guests with the best possible traveling experience. I’m really sorry that this hasn’t been the case here. Just know that we’re always working to improve our products and policies, and even when we aren’t able to accommodate requests, we absolutely value our users’ feedback. As a customer of Airbnb, your voice is both powerful and essential and I’ll be sure to pass your thoughts on to the right team.’

‘Disengage from further discussion on this topic.’ Have you ever heard such a response from supposed Customer Services? They wanted no more to do with it so they basically said ‘end of,’ ‘we’re not listening anymore.’ Needless to say I did not leave it there. I did some research and found a different email address for Airbnb and I have now written a very strongly worded complaint in the hope that a member of the management team will now be informed. Initially, my complaint had nothing to do with Airbnb; my complaint was about the host and the listing. Airbnb made my complaint about them when they disengaged themselves from the topic.

I did some further fact checking before sending off my latest complaint and found that Blake has five reviews from April meaning that he was actually able to re-let his apartment, after all. So, should we not be entitled to our money back for the nights that he re-let? He has also changed the description on his listing, adding ‘This building has not been renovated since the late 40s – so if you’re accustomed to staying at 5 star hotels… you want to keep looking as this place may not be for you!’ I may be paranoid but it feels like that comment is slightly aimed toward me?… Also, he has, without a doubt, uploaded new photographs onto the site… it sure does look cleaner. Worried much? He has also added that he will ‘be there to greet you upon your arrival…’

If he had done this for us, he could have saved us all this trouble as we would have met him initially, had a face to put to a complaint and all of this could have been dealt with a lot easier. Let’s hope he’s learned his lesson. I, myself, as well as many of my friends and family, have used Airbnb and have never had any trouble. We stayed in two other places during our trip and had absolutely no complaints, whatsoever. It seems, however, that in the event that a customer does wish to complain, they make it extremely difficult and do whatever they can to ignore your words. On my discovery of this Airbnb Hell website I felt slightly less alone in my complaint and thought that I would, as many others have, use this as a platform to get my voice heard.

Plus, as Airbnb cancelled our reservation to enable the listing to be rebooked, even though we stayed for one night our reservation was removed so we are unable to write a review. Well, this is your review. Airbnb has clearly washed its hands of this complaint, but, in my experience, a complaint should be dealt with until the complainant is reasonably satisfied with the resolution. Well, I am not reasonably satisfied. So, Airbnb, if you are reading this, what are you going to do? And for all you potential guests out there: stick to hotels.

Most Disrespectful Airbnb Host: Nightmare in Venice Beach

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I have been staying at Airbnbs since the company started and have never come close to having an experience like the one I had in Venice Beach, California. In fact, I have never been disrespected by someone like this in my entire life, no matter what the situation was. As I travel for work, I often stay at Airbnbs across the country and I always treat every home and host better than my own or how I would expect to be treated. This house was super cute and very well decorated. It was exactly what I wanted while in Venice Beach, California until I realized how disrespectful this host and the host’s girlfriend was. On the first morning of my stay, they yelled at me for talking to a client on my cell phone outside in the backyard, which was supposed to be completely open to guests. I was interrupted by the host telling me that he has to make a call and that if I am going to be talking on my phone I have to do so inside my studio. I went inside to finish my conversation and then left to go to a coffee shop and work where I wouldn’t get in trouble for being on the phone.

I WAS EVICTED AT 3:30AM FOR NOTHING. The very next night, I had my best friend drive up from San Diego for dinner. I introduced him to the host’s girlfriend because she was in the yard watering the flowers. She seemed super nice and we all talked about places to go eat, things to see while in town, etc. It was a very normal, casual conversation. She recommended a very nice place for dinner and it was great. She also asked if my friend was planning on staying and although it was not the plan, I said that it depends on how late dinner goes. She said ok and walked inside. Since we couldn’t get a reservation until 9:30pm we did not get home from dinner until midnight or so. We were extremely quiet when we got home and went straight to sleep (again I’m here for work).

After being asleep for 3.5 hours, at 3:30am, I was suddenly woken up by someone pounding on the door and yelling at me to get out of the apartment. I opened the door and it was the host’s girlfriend screaming at me and saying that I must pack my things and leave. I was told that she called Airbnb and reported me for breaking the rules of having a friend stay with me and if I don’t leave in 5 minutes, the cops will come (she never called Airbnb). I was completely caught off guard; it was the middle of the night, and when I simply asked her what was going on and if she could provide me with the number for Airbnb, she said no and that I had to leave immediately. Needless to say it’s 3:45am in the morning now and I am on the street with my luggage and no place to stay. She got to keep the money that I prepaid for the apartment and possibly rented out her place again for that night. I have never been so disrespected by anyone in my entire life. This was the most ridiculous experience that I have ever faced and don’t know anyone who has the conscience to treat someone like this.

After speaking with Airbnb, they were extremely apologetic; they credited my account for the one night and gave me $100 in Airbnb credit. When I asked how to leave a review on the site, I was not able to because the host immediately cancelled the reservation to prevent me from leaving a bad review. When the Airbnb host told me the house rules, there was nothing stating that one will be evicted for having a guest stay with you. The house rules stated that they “prefer” to have no outside guests but when I introduced my friend to the girlfriend earlier in the evening, she said nothing about not being able to stay. I was out $620 from the rental of the Airbnb and then had to find a hotel at 4:00am in a city that I am not familiar with and pay an extra $300 for the room.