Unfortunately, my stay with Herbert was a tragedy and an extremely uncomfortable situation. My partner and I were set to arrive in SF Saturday night, since my partner worked until 7 PM, and I told Herbert we would be in late. Herbert responded that it was okay to show up late just as long as we were quiet upon entry. Shortly afterward Herbert forwarded the door key entry and other relevant information about the house and SF.
So, we landed, got some food, and took a Lyft to Herbert’s house. It was around midnight. The entry code in Herbert’s basement worked fine, and we were careful to be quiet going in.
Here’s where it gets weird, though: the door inside the basement that led to the bedroom was locked. Thinking there’s been a mistake, we searched Herbert’s airBnb interface/correspondence and found nothing indicating anything about a second key (or a required arrival time). Completely confused, we shot him a message over the app, and began looking around for a key, thinking there’d been a mistake. But after searching around for fifteen minutes with no success or response, we began to face some grim choices in Herbert’s cold basement.
First, we called him, but his phone was shut off and it went straight to voicemail. Then we heard footsteps upstairs, but Herbert did not come to the door, so we tried knocking. It did not attract Herbert’s attention.
I called airBnb support for help as my girlfriend called eery hotel she could find with a 24 hour service desk. The AirBnb rep told me they would attempt to contact Herbert, but after 30 minutes they were still not successful. At this point, the airBnb support team was able to cancel our reservation, get me a full refund, and even credit a partial reimbursement for the cost of a hotel to my card, but my partner couldn’t find a hotel for that night, after multiple repeated attempts.
So, what in the world did we do? We sat on the tables in his basement, using towels and bedsheets to keep ourselves warm, as it was extremely windy and cold outside, and we didn’t have a car to get anywhere warmer. As I tried to sleep on the hard wood, I kept trying to figure out what went wrong, to no avail. The whole time I half-expected a concerned and embarrassed Herbert to realize the mistake but nothing to that effect happened, or has happened.
That said, my partner and I pulled through the abhorrent circumstance. I highly recommend the Conservatory of Flowers—it’s beauty redeemed SF.