I've never given a bad review of an Airbnb in my life until now. As a host myself, I like to think that I'm easy to please as I understand the other side of hosting and how easily things can be missed - it happens! No big deal. I chose Jay's place because on the front page of the listing it states "We are taking every precaution necessary to sanitize everything". Prior to booking, I also enquired with the host if it would be ok to bring my registered + trained service animal who goes everywhere with me. The host's response was "Great!" and then she invited me to book. Sounds good, but unfortunately neither of those things were true.
Check in was a breeze and the host offered to let me come an hour early. I came a little bit after checkout and the code was accurate. When I walked into the apartment the bedding was clean as well as the couch cover. But upon actually unpacking, I began to notice how dirty the place was. There were long black hairs on the floor and sticky spots. I went to reach for the mircowave and noticed sauce covered fingerprints on the handle. I went to check for cutlery, and not only was there only butter knives in the drawer, but a stack of food soiled napkins and old soy sauce packages that had dried and actually stuck to the drawer. I tried to wash my hands, no hand soap in the whole apartment. No hand towels in the bathroom or kitchen. When I went to put some prescriptions into the fridge, I noticed that the freezer was full of frost and the door was broken open so it wouldn't close. It seemed as if the whole kitchen was missed in the cleaning. I text Jay and kindly mentioned that the cleaners might have missed a few things. She offered to come re-clean it for me which I was grateful for. It was annoying to have to eat my dinner on the rooptop (which is an awesome bonus btw!) but like I said, I understand that things can me missed - no big deal. When I came back in she was just finishing swiffering, I noticed that the host has long black hair herself although she said she had someone renting it prior to me coming? Who knows.
After her re-clean I noticed that things had been wiped down but unfortunately the freezer door was still broken and when I followed up with a text she told me that "it should stay on and one day she'll have to unplug it to melt the frost". Kinda just told me to deal with it. Queue me spending an hour trying to break off the frost to ensure that my prescriptions stay frozen. This obviously left a pile of frost on the floor which I proceeded to clean up and I was shocked with how entirely dirty the rag was. I began to actually look at the floor and it hadn't been mopped at all. There were sticky spots all over the floor as if it hadn't been properly cleaned in ages. I went to grab a glass of water and the glass was covered in fingerprints and lipstick?! At this point I began to be really concerned with the overall cleanliness in the place. No hand soap? Drawers and dishes dirty? No cutlery except for knives?
To top it all off, there was a RAGER next door until 3:30 am. I informed the host around 12:30 and at 1:30 there was a knock on the door where the neighbour apologized for the noise, but it continued until about 4am. I was totally done. I called Airbnb and explained the whole situation to them and told them I'd be checking out the next day.
When I informed Jay I was checking out she just told me that I need to submit an "alteration request so she can re-rent it out again". Of course, she just didn't accept it and kept stalling. I checked out the next day and I have yet to get a refund for the days I didn't stay there, let alone the money I lost from my prescriptions being ruined from the freezer. When I got a response from Airbnb's help centre after submitting all my evidence, I was told that "the host said that you brought your PET which is against her house rules" and they closed the case. What a scam!!
I was so dissapointed that Jay would lie to them like that when all of the proof is in our message thread. It's now 2 weeks later and I'm deep into a investigation with Airbnb and Jay is being anything but responsive. What a nightmare. This has been a terrible experience and it's hosts like these who give hosts a bad name. The location is great but staying here really isn't worth the headache of a dishonest host.