Annie was quick to confirm our last minute reservation due to another Airbnb host cancelling on us 2 days before arrival and for that we were grateful. Unfortunately things took a turn for the worse.
We arrived at the apartment to be met by one of Annie’s employees. She showed us around the apartment and told us that there was construction going on at the property (which we were not told about before hand) and scaffolding lined the entire view out of every window so we could not see out of the apartment.
She then told us to turn off all AC units when we left the unit because they couldn’t run for a long period of time. There were 6 total AC units, all of which were mini-split systems, I work on these units very often and it seemed odd to me that they would not function properly if left on. Mini split systems run at a lower voltage and are meant to be kept on to save electricity (turning them off and on continuously causes surges in electrical power therefore causing more electrical output)
We found this to be true when we got back from dinner the first night and the apartment unit was over 80 degrees inside.
After further inspection, only 2 of the 6 units were blowing cool air, 3 of them were blowing hot air, and one wouldn’t turn on at all.
We called Annie and messaged her and got no reply. We then called her employee that let us in to the apartment and she answered on the 5th call.
She sent a maintenance crew over an hour later and told us that the units needed to be refilled with water? And that couldn’t be done that night because they needed to get onto the roof to access the external unit so the AC units would not work until the next day. Mini split AC units don’t use water to cool air. They use Freon that cools the air through the system. You should never have to refill that Freon unless there is a leak in the line and if there is a leak in the line, refilling it with Freon will last about 48-72 hours until it all leaks out again.
They told us that we could stay there that night and we would discuss financial compensation in the morning. It was unbearably hot so we decided to check into a local hotel for the evening.
The next morning I called Annie’s employee to inform her that we would not return due to the misinformation and broken AC units.
She then told us that there would be no financial compensation until they went over and checked the AC again. Even though I had written word from her the night before stating that it wasn’t working Via text message. She called back an hour later and said that since one of the six units was working, we could stay there and give them 2 days to fix the rest of the units or receive 1/5 of our money back and leave.
They wanted us to push all the beds into the dining room and sleep 7 people in a 20x15 room until they could fix the AC units. And pay $800 a night to do so? Absolutely ludicrous.
I filed a claim with Airbnb and was able to get a refund through Airbnb but with no help from the host or the large management company that the hosts work with/own. They tried to claim that we slept in the apartment the first night so we didn’t deserve a full refund. Their “proof” was that the bed sheets were tampered with.
Yes, we sat on our beds for 4 hours in the blistering heat waiting for the maintenance team to show up. No we didn’t spend the night and we had the hotel receipts to prove that.
On top of the AC units not working,
-this property was not recently renovated, all of the walls, Ceiling, floors and fixtures were very old as well as the kitchen.
- the carpet upstairs was so dirty that our feet turned black on the bottom after just a few hours walking around the apartment.
-the tile floors were so dusty that one of our guests had an allergic reaction within 30 mins of being in the apartment.
-there were broken lights, broken window shades, broken cabinets and a broken AC unit in the Upstairs bedroom that had to be replaced by a portable AC unit (also was not conveyed to us before arrival)
-none of the bedrooms were configured like they were in the photos, all single beds separated.
In all honesty, it was the worst experience that any of the 7 guests have had to deal with in regards to lodging.
As an Airbnb Super host myself, I cannot imagine treating a guest this way and I would be ashamed to rent such a property at the price that we paid.
I truly hope this is a learning experience for the hosts on how to not handle a situation of this nature.