Dirty, Dusty Apartment in London: No Refunds Given

So I went with my wife to London the week of November 1st because she had an interview on November 2nd. We rented this “clean” place from Airbnb. We got to the apartment at midnight (there were only late flights out of Milan) and as soon as we started to make ourselves comfortable, I realized that the place was dirty. Now I understand we, Brazilians, have different standards of cleanliness. But the place was full of dust, and a lot of spiderwebs and spiders (3-4 in the bedroom alone) were inside the apartment. Under the mattress there was a lot of dust. Dust makes me feel sick and I knew that if I slept there I would wake up feeling terrible the next morning. I can’t imagine how my wife would feel, having a job interview the next day.

So at 2:00 AM, I decided we would leave this place and I booked a hotel room through Booking.com. We walked outside on a 4-degree night to the new hotel, where we could use a shower not full of rust and dirt and have a proper night’s sleep on a nice and clean bed. Funnily enough, the next morning we canceled our reservation through Airbnb and filed for a refund. It took until today (15 days) to received confirmation from AirBNB. And their decision is that they won’t refund us. We stayed at that place for two hours. We left in the middle of a cold night, to walk to an hotel because I knew we would have woken up sick with all the dust. The host didn’t agree with our request for a refund (what a surprise), even though we stayed only two hours. I can expect that from someone who has a dirty place, but I would expect more from Airbnb. I won’t ever rent anything else from them and I urge you to use other methods for finding a place when needed. When the time comes, Airbnb won’t help you at all. In our case, I ended up spending twice what I had in mind: a full reservation on Airbnb that I canceled within ten hours of my arrival, after having stayed there only two hours, and the hotel reservations. I hate Airbnb.

P.S.: My wife can’t even post a bad review on the apartment because we canceled our reservation within ten hours. Funny how I can’t warn other travelers about how this apartment is a bad option (if you like clean and dust-free places), but Airbnb can charge me the full amount.

Airbnb Legal Troubles in New York City

Airbnb will never properly vet hosts, or require themselves to be forthcoming about a legal situation where a host is located. There are critical legal issues the company is having with some major cities, such as New York, Barcelona, and the company’s own hometown of San Francisco. Airbnb’s goal is to make money, period, and thus the company will not be heavily concerned about any complaints. As long as folks keep trying to get a short term rental in places that are trying to curtail this behavior, or in places WHERE IT IS ILLEGAL, the company will keep making money, and to hell with hosts and guests who run into problems. In short, Airbnb has no incentive to discontinue their terrible behavior. Just the opposite. I would not in a million years <a href=”http://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/29/technology/airbnb-sues-san-francisco-over-a-law-it-had-helped-pass.html”>rent a short term whole apartment or home Airbnb in New York City</a>.For the seemingly endless array of folks reserving short term rentals in NYC, getting into serious problems with the cancellations, and screaming “Never Again!”: GET A CLUE and GET A HOTEL.