We’ve used Airbnb quite a lot over the last few years. We’ve rented a room in a house a few times and have rented out an entire place most of the times. Some of our hosts have become friends that we’ve kept in touch with. We like Airbnb for several reasons—We can get our own place, we have a kitchen (which can save a lot of money), we are often outside the tourist zone, and we get more of a local experience.
For the most part our experiences have been quite good with only an occasional very minor hiccup. Until Paris.
I was excited to find an apartment for about $30 a day during the height of high season. I knew it was tiny, but we could do “cozy” for 10 days for that price.
Besides, Paris accommodations usually aren’t all that spacious anyway.
It was definitely as cramped as the photos made it seem, and the neighborhood was a bit more . . . interesting than I had expected. However, the real shocker came as we started checking out the apartment and discovered it was absolutely filthy.
There was dried food and hair on the stove, hairs in the bathtub, dried toothpaste on the bathroom shelf, excessive dust, and more. As we were still within the first 24 hours of our check-in, I initiated a case through the Airbnb resolution center and requested a partial refund. After reviewing my comments and the approximately 12 photos I attached, the owner quickly agreed to my request.
My happiness with Airbnb continued until we hit Riga, and we ended up in the absolute worst apartment we’ve had yet. How this person has so many great reviews, I don’t know, but it was a crap experience from the get-go.
The “fun” started when we returned to the building after dinner. We had been told the coded lock on the front door wasn’t in use so we weren’t given the code. Unfortunately, the lock is very much in use, and we found ourselves locked out of the building. Thankfully, someone with the code soon arrived and let us in.
I should’ve taken it as a sign when the owner was completely unapologetic.
The other thing we discovered that night was that she had minimally turned on the radiator for the apartment. We were shivering for hours while it took its time heating back up. Although, the kitchen area didn’t get much of the heat, so I had to wear a hoodie when cooking in the morning and at night.
The next day I pulled out the one pan to discover it was severely scratched up Teflon (a potential health hazard) which was caked with old food. That’s when I also discovered the “equipped kitchen” with “everything a tourist could need” lacked any cooking utensils.
No spatula, no cooking spoon, nothing.
While I was frustrated, these weren’t massive issues. We were outside the 24-hour window by this point, so I figured I’d just grin and bear it.
Over the ensuing days, we had other minor issues. However, I also dealt with being awoken nightly by the sound of rats moving in the walls. One night one was under my bed. I could’ve sworn I heard one rifling through the kitchen trash, but I couldn’t confirm it.
That is until toward the end of our stay when Henry (Tigger named it) decided to pay us a visit in the living room. He ignored us as he checked out the floors for food, went under the sofa where we were seated, and kept himself occupied in a corner for about an hour in plain sight.
We aren’t afraid of rats, but I’m not particularly keen on sharing my living space with a wild one either.
But the day’s adventures weren’t complete. Later that evening Tigger was doing the dishes when I noticed a stream of water running from beneath the sink. I had him turn off the water, and sure enough the plumbing for the sink had completely fallen apart.
In my frustration and disbelief, I tweeted about the craziness. A friend responded incredulously and tagged Airbnb’s Twitter account in her message. Minutes later I received a message from Airbnb’s Help account, and they made sure I was immediately contacted by someone from customer service.
This is when I discovered the 24-hour rule is for major things such as when a guest shows up and the owner doesn’t, the place is horribly misrepresented, etc. For other issues, one can still open a resolution request even after the initial 24 hours. They strongly encouraged me to open a case, and I decided it was definitely warranted at this point.
I requested a partial refund (I’m way too nice) as well as a refund of the cleaning fee. The owner responded by threatening me and finally declined my request.
At that point, you can ask Airbnb to intervene and make a final decision or you can continue working with the owner. I did the former and in less than 24 hours Airbnb had issued me a full refund (including their service fees) along with some credits to use on a future booking.
Knowing I couldn’t be the only person out there to have an Airbnb horror story, I asked some other people and did some searches online. Most of the stories were fairly mild, although some were really rough.
- This couple ended up being homeless when a miscommunication resulted in them being locked out of their rental late at night.
- Another pair decided to rent a “quirky” place that turned out to be a bit more hellish than quirky, and one of them got a fractured foot as part of their experience.
- Occasionally you run into someone unscrupulous like these folks from Alex in Wonderland:
“We had a super weird Airbnb situation in Caye Caulker. After our first night in the apartment, we were out paddleboarding and discussed how seriously we’d lucked out. A cute place, a good price, a super friendly host and right in the middle of the busiest weekend of the year! Clearly, we should have knocked on wood, because as we swooped back by the apartment to grab our beach bags, our host was waiting outside with bad news: we had to get out, as there’d been a double booking and the other party had paid more. He proposed we move into another of his apartments, a two bedroom being occupied by an older single American man who was “out all day anyway” (um let us think about it… no) or basically just get out and we’d get a refund. Too bad Caye Caulker is booked solid for Easter weekend for weeks in advance! We literally would have been sleeping on the streets.
“I decided to play good cop and told the girls to go upstairs while I explained that while personally I would be totally 100% down with sharing an apartment with a random strange old dude (not true) who was probably also clueless to this arrangement, my sister and cousin were just like slightly uptight in that when they book a private apartment they would like it to themselves. And, unfortunately, I totally get that they’re in a bind, but I just so happened to work for Airbnb and would have no choice but to report an incident like this to headquarters (also definitely not true.) I was my taking my phone out to start a dramatic fake phone call to the CEO when suddenly our host changed his tune and we could stay.”
The common theme that came out of my online research and in requesting people’s stories was that Airbnb’s customer service is top-notch. In my case, they were pretty responsive via social media and their internal messaging system, but you can also phone a special hotline when you need.
As I said above, we have used Airbnb a lot and with very few problems. After how well they responded to our first real crap situation, I won’t hesitate to use them again (and already have 2 other bookings for our next locations).
So if you haven’t given them a chance, I suggest you go for it.
What has your experience with Airbnb been?
November 14, 2015
Oh wow that looks terrible! I had a bad experience when I first moved to Antigua- my friend had booked the AirBnb for a couple of nights but I wanted some time to get to know the place and find a new place to live so I booked for a month and unfortunately paid with Paypal. She initially wanted 3 months upfront, but I’m super glad I didn’t pay that since the place was a disgrace. Lesson learned- use AirBnb in case you want out!
November 18, 2015
Whenever possible, I try to only pay for no more than a week initially to make sure I won’t regret my decision later.
February 5, 2017
We just stayed at a condo through Airbnb in Huntington Beach for 32 days but we had to pay $3475 out of the total $3899 up front. How do we go about paying no more than a week for future bookings?
February 6, 2017
Unless you can make a special deal with the host, Airbnb’s system is going to expect payment up front.
November 8, 2015
Wow, thankfully we’ve never had a bad experience with airbnb before (knock on wood). Glad to hear that customer service is helpful – I can only imagine how frustrating being in those circumstances can be!
November 9, 2015
Considering how often we’ve used them and for how long, it was bound to happen some day. I’m just glad they were so proactive and responsive.
November 7, 2015
I have had the Airbnb app on my phone for months and months now and I still haven’t tried it out yet. I must get around to it and hopefully I won’t end up in a place like that. It looks absolutely filthy! Also, if I saw a rat casually walking around on the floor I’d be screaming my head off whilst running out of the building! 😀
November 9, 2015
That would make for a great video. LOL
November 6, 2015
I haven’t had any terrible experiences happen to me personally, but my boyfriend went through one while he was waiting for me to get to NYC. He was suppose to have a futon in the living room of the apartment, but when he got there, the futon was actually in the kitchen, so every morning when the 2 NYU students (red flag right there) got up and ate breakfast he was right there trying to sleep. On top of it all their apartment was completely filthy. He sent me pics. The trash was overflowing onto the floor. Dirty dishes piled up in the sink and they never unloaded their dishwasher. They just left the door open with the racks out to store clean and dirty dishes. And this was all for $60 per night! I told him to report them, but he didn’t think any thing would come of it. I’m going to have him read this article now.
November 9, 2015
That is just horrid! Yes, he definitely should’ve contacted Airbnb. So wrong!
November 3, 2015
Wow! In hindsight, were there any hints in any reviews or descriptions that these stays could be bad?
November 9, 2015
Nope! For this one with the rats her reviews were excellent. I’m still stymied. Although most of her guests were from the Baltics or Russia, so perhaps the expectations are just vastly different.
November 3, 2015
What terrible stories, those photos are so gross 🙁
While I was happy with how my Airbnb story was eventually resolved, the company was not responsive when I needed them to be (when I was calling their emergency hotline at 2am and no one answered–they didn’t start to staff it until about 7:30EST). I’m HOPE they have changed it since then and now offer a 24-hour hotline. That’s good to know about their Twitter helpline, I’ll have to follow that account.
November 9, 2015
Oh wow! You’d think they would have it staffed 24 hours, esp since it’s a global operation.
November 3, 2015
We used AirBnb over a dozen times, on three continents, during our world trip. We stayed in everything from high-rises to an South African sheep ranch – it was awesome.
If only I had been more diligent, like you, with our Shanghai apartment, though. It was so filthy. We had him move us to a slightly less filthy apartment and then (as it was 24 hours later) just decided to ‘grin and bear it’. We should have contacted Airbnb, I guess. Good to know for future trips!
Thanks for this post,
Michelle
November 9, 2015
I’m not surprised. A friend of ours rented quite a bit in China (long-term rental), and she said it’s pretty customary to have to do a deep clean of a rental. From everything I’ve heard and read, it just doesn’t seem to be a very . . . tidy culture.
November 3, 2015
Talon, how does Riga fit into this? Thought the difficult Air B & B was Paris. Yep Henry should have posed for a photo under the kitchen sink water pipe!!!
November 9, 2015
The first photos are from the place in Paris, and the rat and broken sink stay was in Riga.
November 3, 2015
I’ve had good experiences with all of my rentals through AirBnB to date but I know to always be prepared in case things don’t go quite right. That mouse thing would have made me scream – glad AirBnB resolved your situation and it is good to know that I can contact them if I have issues!
November 9, 2015
We’ve had so many really good experiences with them. Makes it even better to know firsthand that they’ll come through for you when it goes south.
November 3, 2015
No photo of Henry-lol? That place sounds too disgusting for words. You have a lot of fortitude. I would have been out of there the first day. Wonder how they got good reviews. It’s good that you reported them- otherwise others would encounter this same subpar apartment. I hope Airbnb removed them from the rental roster.
November 9, 2015
Airbnb gave me the impression that they gave her some expectations on improvements, which she apparently accepted.
November 3, 2015
Wow, what a story!! We’ve actually never stayed in an air bnb but when we had a second bedroom we rented it on the site.
Most of our guests where either never there aside to sleep, which worked, or lovely. Aside from a couple who had decided to move to Dublin with no jobs or place lined up. They were in the apartment basically all the time as they had no money. As Alex works from home this was very difficult, after that we learnt to communicate a whole lot better and didn’t host people in such a circumstance, which may seem a little unfair, but I think the right expectations for both parties are what make air bnb work!
Best of luck with your next air bnb rental 🙂
November 9, 2015
As long as those expectations are made clear, yes it’s a good thing indeed.
November 2, 2015
Yikes! Those sound like quite the doozies! We often use Airbnb and have only had one challenging incident from a host who was brand new to Airbnb in Manilla, Philippines. The host insisted on us giving her an $800 USD security deposit in cash to hang on to. Things got a little dicey when we downright refused and it was looking like we’d be getting kicked out. But Airbnb customer service was awesome in getting it straightened out and they explained to the host that any cash transactions violate Airbnb’s policy. All ended well and we stayed in the apartment without dishing out the cash.
November 2, 2015
Yikes! Glad it was resolved. That’s quite the deposit, too!
November 2, 2015
Greta review of AB&B. I’ve found the same to be true…that is great customer service and for the most part upstanding folks who rent out their places. We’ve rented from people all over the world and really only had issues a couple of times…one time the host was so apologetic he sent over a bottle of the local whiskey!
November 2, 2015
Now THAT’s an apology!
November 2, 2015
Yikes! I guess it’s good to know Air BnB has such great customer service, but sad you had to go through all that. I swear I read on another blog a few months ago about another bad experience in Riga. Maybe the same place? I don’t remember but it was equally atrocious. I haven’t used them yet, but was thinking about it for next year.
November 2, 2015
Interesting! I’m not surprised they had issues in Riga, to be honest. From the ones I looked at it seems that there isn’t a lot of . . . host pride in many of the rentals. Now, our one in Dubulti (a district in Jurmala) was really good.
November 2, 2015
A horror Halloween story in perfect timing 🙂 So sorry you had those experiences!
November 2, 2015
Too bad we couldn’t put a costume on the rat. 😀