I strongly recommend to my fellow travelers to stay very far away from this listing.
I booked this room while I was in town for work. My flight was scheduled to arrive at 9:30pm, and I noted the host’s “no check-ins after 9pm without prior approval.” Louise-Diana and I spoke on the phone when I made the booking, and I was clear about the late flight, that I would do everything possible to get there on time, and that, as a fellow early-to-bed person, I would understand if my arrival conditions would be a deal-breaker for her. She said it would be fine, that it was a quiet neighborhood so to please be considerate when I did arrive. No problem.
Unfortunately, there were engine problems and my flight was delayed significantly. Once we were being re-boarded, I messaged Louise-Diana to let her know and ask how I could make this minimally inconvenient to her.
She wrote back that I could not come anymore - it would be disruptive to her sleep. She recommended I get a hotel.
I was floored. I had booked in advance because I didn’t want to have to secure accommodations at the last minute, but now I was being denied entry to a place I had paid to stay at! At this point, I would have cancelled if it were possible.
The host offered no apology, did not offer the obvious solution of leaving a key out, and made absolutely zero effort to meet her obligation. I only wanted the bare minimum of a safe place to stay.
I wasn’t able to book a hotel during the flight, and so when we arrived at 2am, I took an airport shuttle to a nearby hotel. They had no vacancies. Neither did the hotel across the street. I spent hours walking alone in a city I had never been in trying to find a safe place to sleep. By 5am, I gave up at just sat in a hotel lobby until Louise-Diana woke up. I had written her several times during the night to alert her to my situation.
I contacted AirBnB customer support several times throughout this saga. We somehow kept getting poor connections or cut off. When I reached a rep, I stated the situation and asked to please be rebooked into an alternative accommodation. They said that they couldn’t guarantee a refund, but that they would reach out to me with options. I didn’t hear from them again for several days. They eventually refunded the cost of my first night.
Given that I had no other choice and no support from customer support, I eventually checked in to Louise-Diana’s apartment. When I rang the doorbell, she opened the door, arms extended, and exclaimed “The wanderer!” as if my sleepless night was a choice I had made. If I had had another option, I would have taken it, but by 8am all I wanted was a bed.
The following points do seem really moot, but once I check in, I was provided with a clean bathroom and private room. The twin bed was unstable - it would tip over if you sat in the wrong place. I don’t think it was intended to be used as a sleeping solution. It was a piece of furniture that folded into three sections (maybe it worked as a chair or chaise lounge when not flat?), and so there were two metal bars that went across it with about an inch of cushion in those areas. This setup might have worked if something had been put in place to stabilize it, and if there had been a mattress topper on top. The sheets seemed to be clean, but I don’t think that the pillow was washed after a prior guest - it smelled strongly of a man’s sweat.
Louise-Diana never apologized to me or tried to make it right. After this experience, I am probably not going to book on Airbnb anymore. This program only works if people can trust that the company profiting off this platform will have the backs of its customers, and it’s demonstrated that it definitely does not. I don’t think it’s any more secure than a Craigslist posting.