This has been by far our WORST experience on Airbnb. You never know how truly exceptional a host is until you see how they handle a problem. Unfortunately, Jerry is not exceptional.
My wife and I have been wanting to visit Hawaii (my first time) for many years now and finally made the big decision to vacation there a few months ago. We reserved Jerry's place months ahead of our arrival and planned our trip accordingly. We made the decision to stay at his place for a few important reasons. One being that he had the word CLEAN in his title. My wife is very particular about this and some of the reviews from other guests seem to back this. Another being FREE PARKING, which is the reason we also decided on renting a car and planning around having a car. Parking can be a nightmare in Waikiki if not planned well. Lastly, he has a full kitchen and a laundry room nearby his unit. We had decided we wanted to cook some of the days to save some money. All this kind of backfired on us.
The first night of our stay, we found a few small cockroaches near the kitchen sink and refridgerator. I eliminated a few and hoped that would be the end of it. However, we made the decision we would not be using the kitchen for the remainder of our stay. The second night, we found more but this time, they were in the bathroom as well as the kitchen area. It was already late into the evening and I had decided it be best to message Jerry in the morning which I did. I brought to his attention the issue and went about our planned scheduled day. Upon returning the 3rd night, I checked my messages and saw his reply. Basically, it was a KNOWN problem with his unit and that he did say that the area was treated but that the new eggs were not affected. Shockingly, he offered no other solutions other than that he would treat his unit again after we left. To make things worse, not only did we find quite a few more in the kitchen and bathroom area but now we saw them by our bedside! My wife and I did not sleep well during the remainder of our stay always wondering if we would wake up to a cockroach on our pillows. What a nightmare.
I reached out to Airbnb to see if there was something that could be done as our host did not offer any meaningful solutions. After a few back and forths with Airbnb, our host offered 2 additional solutions after Airbnb had reached out to him directly. First was that he would treat the unit again but that we would have to leave the unit for the better part of the day or to cancel our reservation in its entirety. We really wanted to take the latter but could not find any place that could accomodate our rental car situation. We had activities we reserved and paid for in advance and did not want to miss out on them just to spend a day of our vacation relocating. So, we had agreed to the unit being treated again.
Upon our return on the 4th day after the unit had been treated, we thanked him for what he did but brought to his attention that we found a few more coackroaches in his unit. His response was that they should be dead. When we told him they were not, he immediately told us to cancel and leave. The issue presisted until we left on the morning of the 6th day of our trip.
We have documented this issue with photos and videos every day and have forwarded it to Airbnb. Surprisingly, Jerry has decided to ignore Airbnb entirely in the aftermath to come to any meaningful resolution to our issue.
This has been extremely disappointing and a disgusting experience. Jerry has not even apologized ONCE during our conversations. I'm really surprised by this because a simple sorry goes a long way. He truly lacks empathy and integrity. He has misled us with his listing title (the word CLEAN should be removed). He should put in his listing that due to tropical weather, bugs might be present at his unit to better manage expecations for guests. I hope he learns from this and improves his services when things go awry. For me personally, I will never reserve any listings from this host ever again. Reputation matters and unfortunately, Jerry has ruined his with me.
Airbnb has done what little they could on their end because the host was unwillingly and one of the support staff has gone above and beyond and reimbursed us a small portion of our stay. Thank you.