Summary: the Airbnb app had a glitch, which the host saw and confirmed that it indeed was a glitch, and kicked three black women out at 11pm as a result of it. The apartment wasn’t breathtaking.
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DO NOT STAY HERE IF YOU ARE A MUSLIM AND/OR PERSON OF COLOR. We have read each of the reviews under this listing and noted that the host responds to each of them defensively, so we expect that here.
Our experience at Hanna’s place was extremely racist, hostile, and uncomfortable.
The three of us booked a one night stay at her subpar unit to have a quiet birthday retreat: a night of good food, art, face masks and conversation. After dinner (around 9:30), Hanna interrupted our evening by knocking on our door accusing us of sneaking people into her home. This made no sense because we booked for 3 people and there were 3 of us at the unit. Presumably, if a host needed to communicate with their guests, they should be using the in-app messaging system to communicate. Instead, Hanna came to our door. Hanna claims that she only saw one guest listed on her end even though the Airbnb reservation clearly states 3 guests (also confirmed by the Airbnb support staff, and multiple email confirmations). As an immediate response, I immediately went to grab my phone and showed her what my AirBnB reservation showed: 3 guests. She did not offer to show us what her booking showed. We even triple checked our invitation emails that state, “Orit has invited you as a guest.” Because our reservation showed three guests, and she saw this, we all agreed that this must be a glitch on Airbnb’s end.
After Hanna saw our booking, she quickly changed her tone from accusatory to accommodating and said the 3 of us could stay the night as we planned, offered her couch as a pullout in case we needed extra room. She reiterated how nice, and quiet we were, and seemed to understand that it would be rash to kick out 3 women at night. Hanna kept asking us “not to do anything” because her “insurance” wouldn’t cover it. Following her first interruption, the tone and comfort of our evening conversations turned somber and quiet.
What she meant by “don’t do anything” is still unclear and again felt very hostile and accusatory. Hanna tried to add-on additional costs for the use of extra blankets (frankly, we had seen a dusty, stained gray blanket and red-yellow flat stained pillow case in the closet and weren’t particularly keen on using any additional linens from her) We said we’d be willing to pay for the blankets and then she said “it’s not about the money”..... Clearly exhibiting neurotic and erratic behavior.
My friends and I were getting ready for bed in our pajamas and Hanna interrupted us again at 10:45 pm knocking on the door and speaking erratically and unclearly. At this point we began to feel very unsafe and uncomfortable in her Airbnb. None of us were sure what she was trying to communicate, so we asked, “What do you want us to do”. To be clear- both times she interrupted our evenings, we let only one person from our friend group do the speaking. We are acutely aware of how black women are perceived in communication, so we did not each speak over each other, we did not argue, we let one person handle the conversation while the other two stayed quiet.
She then said, “I will reimburse you if you leave.”
Though we were shocked at the imprudent request, we immediately began tidying up and packing our belongings. Ten minutes later, when we were trying to exit her home, Hanna cornered us in her hallway and kept speaking to us even though we were trying to get away from her as quickly as possible. We closed the door while she was still erratically speaking and walked to my parked car. On our way out, we noticed extra cars in the driveway that were not previously there, which made us feel like she called extra people to possibly inflict harm upon us.
While loading the trunk (mind you, in the dark), Hanna appears again, having exited her home from another entrance, which was very disorienting and scary. She continues to harass us on the way out. We had to repeatedly ask her to leave us alone, but she kept threatening that she was a lawyer. We continued to repeat, “We are trying to leave please leave us alone”, she must have then understood that we were far from interested in engaging with her, and she left.
After safely arriving at a hotel, we researched Hanna and noticed other People of Color that have stayed here have also felt unsafe and experienced racism. We were put in a very vulnerable and unsafe situation by staying at Hanna’s home and if you are a woman or a person of color, or muslim, we strongly recommend you do NOT stay at this Airbnb. We also recommend that she should be revoked of her superhost title, if not for her racism and islamophobia, but for her intrusive behavior, lack of stove, freezing cold apartment (that the space heater does not adequately warm up), absurdly loud noises from upstairs (dogs, children, doors being slammed), and half the electrical sockets not working, stained linens and pillows, and overall dusty and dull apartment.