We were visiting Switzerland from San Francisco. This was my first Airbnb rental and sorry to say, this was not a pleasant stay at all. I expect better from hosts who are making money renting their places.
We rented the place for 7 days. I landed in Geneva and by the time I came to the place in Laussane, it was already evening and very dark.
The road leading to the apt building did not have any lights or any sign and the taxi guy had to use his torch to locate the number on the far end of the building.
Moreover, it was not indicated by the host that the building does not have an elevator and we had to carry our heavy suitcases up 4 floors. You do need a car to get around the area.
The host was Ok sending responses before we moved in but became very slow in responses or did not respond at all after we moved with the issues that we wanted him to address.
For instance, we had initially booked the place for 2 but, later my older son decided to join us there 2 days later. The host charged us extra for another adult for 7 days and did not respond to our request to adjust the charges for 2 days.
Secondly, we had a plumbing issue when after a shower the bath tub would not drain well and my son had to unclog it by pulling long strands of hair ( UGHH). The place had a stench of baby poop/spoilt milk all over the main bedroom and furniture. His response was - oh it is the first and the last time this happened ! He never came or sent anyone to take care of the mess.
We also requested a late checkout on the last day as I had come down with flu and needed to go to the hospital to get antibiotics prescribed by a doctor before leaving bag and baggage. Not receiving any response from via airbnb site or email for over a day, I called him directly to discuss the situation and reason as to why we needed some more time and he agreed to have us move out by 1/2 PM instead of by 11 AM.
While we were getting ready to go to the nearby hospital his cleaning lady shows up at door.
She and him talk in French over the phone ( i do understand some french as i took lessons in college ) and he sends us a message via airbnb to say that we needed to leave immediately and that he had not remembered that he had already promised the next guests an early check in !!! REALLY ? - so he did not know this an hour back when we talked over the phone ??
We had to shower and pack all our things in a hurry and leave without going to the doctor first.
I want to add on that we rented another place via airbnb in Zermatt and, I had my fears of experiencing something similar to Laussane again but , that place was such a welcome relief. It was a large studio with three beds ,very clean and did not have any bad odors around.
Best of all - The hosts were very helpful with any requests we made. They even kept a watch on our luggage last day when we wanted to explore more of Zermatt.