Our situation was very specific where the AC in the unit happened to go out. We were notified after checking in to the apartment that maintenance would be showing up in the morning to fix it. The room was in 90s overnight, we didn’t even stay and enjoy it because it was so uncomfortable.
I understand that this is something that happens, but the host had asked us in prior exchanges not to mention that we were air bnb guests, so when maintenance showed up at 8am to fix the garbage disposal, window screen, and window AC, they thought we were the owner of the space and they were asking us questions we didn’t know how to answer and we were trying to respect the host’s wishes by not ratting him out. The landlord and maintenance crew came in and out for about 45 minutes after a night of barely any sleep because of the heat. The AC couldn’t be replaced so we literally never had air the entire time in a stiflingly hot room. They were asking us what time they should come back/explaining the problem to replacing the AC and we had to pretend like we knew anything about it.
When I emailed the host, he did refund me $50 but also suddenly took back the fact that he asked us not to mention the air bnb to anyone. He also mentioned to me that it got to the 60s at night multiple times. As if cooling outside air temps magically change indoor temperatures in a room that had been baking in direct sunlight with no air for over 24 hours. It was a really inappropriate and unfair situation.
Again, I understand this was probably a once in a lifetime unlucky situation but I don’t believe the host handled it correctly or respectfully. It made us very uncomfortable that we weren’t supposed to be there because he didn’t want anyone knowing he’s a host and then when I told him how we felt he told me I could’ve canceled once we got in the room. This was our first trip to California and we don’t know the area. We would not have been able to drop the room and find another place on the spot like that and if he hadn’t asked us to lie for him, we might not have been so frustrated.