Terrible!! This was my first bad experience out of about 20 trips since I started using Airbnb in 2013 and this will be my first negative review. We had to find other accommodation and Airbnb thankfully refunded 100% of our money after sending them pictures and videos. A total waste of our time on holiday and unnecessary stress. It would have been much less hassle for all of us for the host to be a bit more accommodating from the start!! In summary, there were not two bedrooms which is what we booked. After we brought this up, the host just kept saying that there was no photo of a second bedroom in the Airbnb listing. Well, when I bought a used car a couple of years ago there was not photo of the engine on the ad but I can confirm there was definitely an engine! When I booked the flights to Italy there was no photo of the seats on the plane but they were definitely there! And when I book a two bedroom accommodation, I expect there to be two bedrooms! The host has since renamed the listing to a “one bedroom unit” so maybe he has come to his senses or was forced to by Airbnb.
We booked accommodation on Airbnb clearly listed as having two bedrooms. It was also listed as having a washing machine and titled “Large trullo apartment with pool in farm”. When we arrived, we were shown to a *tiny* one bedroom unit with no washing machine and a tiny hopeless kitchen. I asked where the second bedroom was and was told that there is one bedroom but because the sofa in the living room is a sofa bed, that makes it another bedroom. I asked where the washing machine was and was told there was no washing machine but we could use the hosts machine for €5 a go. I showed our host the Airbnb listing on my phone and pointed out that TWO bedrooms and a washing machine is clearly stated. The host still said we have to pay for washing and even asked “why do you want two bedrooms?”!! I replied that 1. My wife needs to work for a few hours each day so needs the private space and 2. That’s what we have paid for! The host just said “no washing machine” and “this is two bedrooms”. I said that this is not acceptable but the host wouldn’t budge and was obviously getting annoyed. Clearly, we weren’t getting anywhere, had been travelling for 8 hours, were hungry and wanted to get our two year old indoors and fed so we said let’s discuss this later and took our bags inside. There were many other issues like the tiny hopeless kitchen that was described as “fully equipped”, lukewarm shower water and no WiFi reception.
So, we stayed the night and emailed all our concerns to the host via Airbnb messaging. We had noticed that although it was a large site and the host has 5 Airbnb listings at this site, we were the only people staying there. We thought that surely we could come to some kind of arrangement. Maybe they could move us to their other unit that actually did have two bedrooms or let my wife use somewhere else to do her work. The reply was a clear NO. He even said in his email reply that “the living room becomes the second bedroom because of the sofa bed”. The host offered to turn up the hot water and said we can use the washing machine for free every other day. That was it. Quite ridiculous as they had their whole site empty! I really got the impression they are jaded and just fed up of running the place. The host even said he was surprised we weren’t happy and thus was the first complaint in 10 years. That’s not true as if you look at one of his other Airbnb listings you can see a very bad review from august 2021, just last month. I don’t know what was going through his mind! I live in a two bedroom apartment in London. In the living room there is a nice comfortable sofa. It happens to turn into a bed which sometimes comes in handy. That doesn’t mean that I live in a 3 bedroom apartment! It means I have a sofa bed! If I put a bicycle in the living room that doesn’t mean that I live in a two bedroom apartment with a bicycle storage room, it means that there is a bicycle in my living room!
We tried again to see if the host would come to some sort of arrangement with us but he just dug his heels in and said no and seemed quite angry and offended.
So anyway, we had to get back on Airbnb (using our phone data to hotspot obviously because the wifi didn’t work at all), spend ages finding somewhere else to stay, pack up all our stuff and drive an hour and a half to our new accommodation, unpack and start our holiday again. A total waste of a whole day. We complained to Airbnb and sent pictures and video. Airbnb agreed and sent us a 100% refund.
It was so silly because the host lost out on the money and got a bad review and we had to have a day of stress and hassle during our holiday. All they had to do was negotiate a little and we could have worked everything out just fine. They had about 7 bedrooms of accommodation sitting there empty. Their attitude was shocking and thankfully is the only bad experience I’ve had on Airbnb who were very helpful through this whole debacle.