Last time I had a subpar experience with Airbnb was 10 years and 30+ stays ago. That time was related to hygiene and host's ownership of the problem. This time is no different.
There was a cockroach 🪳 infestation, terminate 🐜 infestation and unsafe conditions on the lanai (broken railing that could allow our toddler to fall from 2nd story) for the extent of our 10 day 5 person stay (2 kids).
Owner (Bill) was surprised about the roach infestation when this was communicated (on day 1 of our 10 day stay) and offered to send in a exterminator that comes monthly. His initial response was disingenuous - surprise that there is a cockroach problem ("OMG, I didn't know") followed by Bill indirectly admitting that it is an issue he is aware of because an exterminator comes monthly and detailed recommendations for how to deal with problem. We didn't take him up on the offer since the problems kept mounting and we didn't feel like spending our vacation helping the owner fix all the issues that weren't supposed to exist in the first place. We stayed out of the kitchen as much as possible and dealt with the problems ourselves.
After our stay, we drafted the list of issues as a private message to Bill to provide feedback and to be able to respond before the public review. We were looking for ownership of the problems and genuinely thought (still think) that this was a lapse in housekeeping not communicating the issues back to Bill and Bill not doing a walk-through of his properties regularly. Bill's reviews are outstanding on other properties and this gave us the comfort level to book this accommodation even though it didn't have many reviews. In that private communication that we've exchanged since Bill has kept pointing out that we didn't communicate problems as they arose and didn't take him up on the offer of the exterminator. In his opinion, we didn't give him a chance to make things right. That's valid - I agree. However, the initial disingenuous response set a tone that didn't inspire trust and shifted the ownership to us. I was also surprised by the suggestion versus a call to action of sending in an exterminator. As a host, if I was presented this, my response would be "exterminator coming at X hours, does that work for you" vs "I can send in the exterminator". I would probably also give my guests a call to ensure they felt supported. In 10 years of using Airbnb I've never encountered this level of hygiene/safety issues. Their extent, existence and quantity told me that a quick fix wouldn't cut it and that it wasn't on me to help the owner fix these as we encountered them.
TV stand and wood cabinets in the living room resembled swiss cheese because of termites. The droppings that collected under the furniture over a period of our stay were a testament of the extent of the issue. Bill was similarly unaware of the issue - this is strange as the issue was very visible (holes in furniture, visible termite cadavers/wings, termite droppings which are hard to confuse with anything else).
Railing on the lanai was dry rotted through (specifically vertical pieces). An adult would never touch those pieces because they are too low to the ground, but the problem is visible and becomes obvious with a closer inspection. Our toddler, which played on the lanai in our presence, came up to the railing, grabbed and leaned slightly against the vertical pieces and it gave way in front of him by a few inches. The top was still attached, but the bottom was completely loose. In other circumstances, if our toddler leaned in harder, he would have fallen through from the 2nd floor onto a concrete pavement below. Bill didn't comment about this at all. Similarly to other issues, we dealt with this on our own by blocking access to parts of railing that was dry rotted.
There were other issues that would be worth mentioning in a more favorable review, but in this case it's not worthwhile.
I hope Bill starts walking his properties regularly and communicate better with his housekeeper.