NIGHTMARISH EXPERIENCE WITH THE HOST AND AIRBNB
First, the room. As other guests have noted, the photos of the rental unit are very misleading, probably by using professional lighting and fisheye lens. The bedroom is much darker and smaller than the photos suggest. The bed takes up virtually the entire room and the room is dark: no room for yoga. Second, there is nothing that prohibits smoking immediately outside the apartment in the front or the back. Third, while there was hot water in the sink, the shower had cold to lukewarm water only. And the drain did not work, so that there was an inch or two of water in the bottom when I took a shower. Fourth, there was an unremovable plastic cover on the mattress, which made the bed uncomfortable. The host admitted this fact – about 10 days after I cancelled -- saying he was storing the mattress on the bed in my rental unit. Fifth, the cheap T.V. is the smallest with the worst sound I have ever had in a rental unit. And it got only about 10 channels. Sixth, the coin-operated washer and drier available to anyone from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. are inches away from the back wall of the bedroom.
About 6-7 weeks before our reservation, I found some negative reviews of this same bedroom, but the host refused to discuss cancelling and a partial refund. One of the contract provisions was the requirement that I had to cancel the 30-day reservation within 24 hours and without knowing whether Airbnb would honor my complaints of material misrepresentations and give me a refund. I complained about this unfair term long before I moved in, but Airbnb refused to consider a refund until I moved in. When I did move in, I decided I did not want to suffer this unit or the host for a month. The Airbnb contract required me to cancel within 24 hours which I did.
On the day of my arrival, the host refused to return my phone calls after he had specifically told me to call him 30 minutes before I arrived to get instructions about how to get into the unit. Instead he posted this information without telling me ONLY on the Airbnb internet site, which I did not discover until hours later when I got on the internet to complain. That is, he said to call and never indicated I needed to go online to find out how to get in.
The host responded to my complaints with a simple “you are a liar,” and never offered to remedy the problems he claimed were lies. Only later did the host admit to one of my complaints, the mattress with the plastic cover on it. He claimed he was “storing” the mattress in my unit. I concur with one guest who referred to the host as a bully who verbally attacked her when she complained. These are just the highlights of my nightmarish experience.