AirBnB “Entire Home” Rental Nightmare

I’ve used air bnb a couple of times to rent ‘entire homes’. One good experience in the UK and two in the US…and one very bad one in the US! The main thing I’d like to share is that air bnb does not monitor their listings in the way you would expect of an agency listings accommodation. Usually agencies/websites hosting hotels or apartments monitor these properties for accuracy of description etc. It was only after my unsatisfactory experience that I discovered this. I rented an ‘entire home’ which was not cheap. However upon staying there discovered that the entrance was shared, the heating could not be controlled by us, and it was basically a room in this person’s house, that upon entering the main door you the entered the room via a patio door. Due to many issues including cleanliness and noise, I only stayed 2 of 4 nights. I had no recourse except to write a negative review, which I had been debating whether to do as the host could simply write a nasty view on my profile in return (I have seen that he has done this to someone else as he doesn’t take kindly to negative reviews). And it seems his strategy works as I can mostly only see positive reviews which I find very hard to believe. Also, it felt as though this host treated me as a non-paying guest in terms of how I had to leave the property. And there were way too many restrictions on what I could and couldn’t do. Doubt very much I will use Airbnb again.

Rotton Eggs

Oh man I’m so glad somebody made a site like this! My girlfriend and I were supposed to stay in an airbnb room a few weeks ago in San Diego for 3 nights, but when we got there the room had such a terrible smell (seriously it was like rotten eggs mixed with mold!) we literally ended up leaving within 10 minutes and spending twice as much at a hotel! We complained to the host first but he said there wasn’t anything he could do about it and he wouldn’t give us our money back, so then we complained to Airbnb and they said they needed “documentation” of the smell in order to provide a “partial refund”! HOW DO YOU DOCUMENT A SMELL?!?! We argued for a few emails back and forth then finally gave up. We were so frustrated, I’m pretty much positive we’ll never try airbnb again!