I’m not sure where to begin, as I have never had an experience like this before in all my airbnb rentals. I wouldn’t recommend staying here and hope you’ll take a moment to carefully read about our experience. Luckily all our money is supposed to be refunded.
Here’s what we experienced:
1. The host emailed us the day before our trip to ask for a separate payment of $180 for cleaning and deposit outside the airbnb system, before she would release the checkin instructions . We knew this was against the airbnb rules, but she’s a Superhost so we did it anyway. After she got our $180 she messaged the checkin instructions. They were not available in the normal airbnb trip details section.
2. The checkin instructions gave an address which did not match the address listed with airbnb (the one you can see in the trip details only after making a booking). When we asked her which address was correct, she said the airbnb trip details address. Then two hours later she messaged to say, no she had made a mistake and the correct address was the checkin instructions address. It seemed weird that she couldn’t get this straight and that she had even provided airbnb with an incorrect address.
When we messaged her that we were concerned that the actual address wasn’t correct with airbnb, she replied immediately with a strangely worded and false message that it was for privacy issues because she didn’t want the general public to see the address before booking. But again, she’s a Superhost and had great reviews, so even though now we had 2 giant inappropriate red flags, we ignored them.
3. When we got to the building around 10:45pm, the checkin instructions got us in the main doors but we couldn’t get into the actual unit. The checkin instructions said the unit door would be open, with the keys inside the unit, but the unit door was locked.
Mary replied pretty quickly to our message asking for help but wouldn’t get on the phone with us. She told us her “colleague would call” and that she was “busy with her associates” (at 11pm) and couldn’t talk to us directly. She replied to every message instantly but with simple vague answers like “My colleagues are working on a way to let you in.” For over an hour, we stood there in front of the door.
4. Around midnight we finally gave up and went to a hotel. She then messaged that her colleague was there to let us in. So we went back. A random guy was there with with a drill (he was not a locksmith) and forced his way into the apartment with the drill. When we got inside, we found suitcases, backpacks and prescription meds. The reason why the door was locked was apparently because someone else was staying there! And maybe he was out with the keys?
5. The guy with the drill insisted that we should stay and that he would just take the other person’s suitcases with him. We obviously refused since we didn’t have keys, we had no idea if the other renter would return, it felt Covid unsafe, had a cleaner actually been there? Etc. The whole experience had been so off and inappropriate, and it was almost 1am, and it was time to throw in the towel.
Throughout it all, Mary was very responsive to our messages but in an unhelpful and odd way. She never apologized, never seem concerned. She wouldn’t get on the phone with us. She sent short vague replies to every question. One of her “colleagues” who we had been speaking with called us back again after we had left and told us the unit was empty and that since it was as our choice not to stay, they would not be refunding any of our money.
I’ve stayed in airbnbs all over the world and never had a bad experience or written a bad review. This one was just problematic (in very worrisome ways) at every step.