This was our WORST experience using Airbnb. In fact, it’s our only bad experience using Airbnb. We were extremely disappointed in the space as well as how the hosts handled the situation described below.
We chose Ryan and Tina's place because of the great location, warm aesthetics, and the reoccurring great reviews. I caution anyone to base their decision off of any reviews stating how clean the place is. The great location was the ONLY part of this listing that rang true. Finding the space was easy and the instructions for entry were very clear. As soon as we walked through the gate, there was trash all over and a used mask in the flower pot by the door. After getting inside, the first sight was that pretty spiral staircase with pulled up pieces of flooring beneath the staircase and a lot of 'dust bunnies' and cob webs. At this point, we were a little surprised but not completely turned off from the place. We took our luggage upstairs (beware of large luggage if you stay here, it was not easy to get luggage up the spiral staircase) and immediately noticed that the actual ‘feel’ of the place wasn't reconciling with what the listing portrays, in our opinion. There were no plants in this house as the photos show. At least not any living ones. There was one dead one. We don't require plants, I mention this only because the plants in the photos create a warm and welcoming atmosphere that this space simply does not have. This entire place looked like it hadn’t been touched in at least a month, there was a large bug crawling up the wall, there were dead moths on the couch in the kitchen, the sheets and bed skirt were stained with who knows what, under the bed there was dirt, trash, and remnants of spilled drinks, the drawers were all crammed and untidy, all the kitchen cabinets were untidy, dirty, and had a lot of food crumbs. The shiny shower head portrayed in the pictures is actually covered in soap scum. This may not be a problem for everyone, but it’s something that grosses me out.
We stayed long enough to take photographic proof of all of the cleanliness issues and then we left to try to go find another place to stay for the next 6 nights. We immediately let Ryan and Tina know that we wouldn’t be staying there and we also sent them some photos for reference. They live next door and Ryan quickly offered to have the cleaning crew back and to personally make it right that night. This was not an issue of a few things left dirty; with everything that we saw in this space, there was no way we were going to sleep there. Ryan seemed to think that a request of a full refund was ‘unreasonable’ and that the cleanliness issue could have been resolved with ‘little inconvenience to us’. Ryan and Tina refused to refund us the full amount and instead refunded us the $150 cleaning fee. We then filed a claim directly to Airbnb who reviewed the message threads and all the photos and approved our refund approximately 48 hrs after what would’ve been our check-out date; stating that it was a valid request and more than eligible for a full refund.
We are aware that things happen. ‘Professional’ cleaning crews (as Ryan likes to reiterate are the types of cleaners he uses) sometimes drop the ball. Sometimes things go wrong. However, it isn’t our responsibility to take the financial fall for those shortcomings when they occur. If the hosts had taken responsibility, I would’ve just skipped taking the time to review anything and wouldn’t have put our negative experience out there to deter other travelers. Our experience seemed to only be shared by a couple of others, but my advice would be to not risk it. I wish we hadn’t, because it made the first 3 days of our trip very difficult. The fact that they thought it was ok to still have us pay for a place that was in that condition and a place that we didn’t stay in because of that condition is unacceptable. The responses that the hosts give to negative reviews seem to only be met with a lot of excuses and zero accountability, as I’m sure this one will be no exception. I just hope that our review saves someone else from having to deal with what we had to for the first half of our trip.