This was the worst Airbnb experience that I have ever had EVER, because of the host.
I have used Airbnb hundreds of times and have never had a bad experience with a host until this one and she blows it out of the water. Plus the location was poor, unless you're only going to Volcano National Park.
She threw so much negative bullshit at me that I could write a short book about it so I am going to try and be succinct and clear. As context - I had such a negative experience with this host that I had to go to Airbnb for support. They investigated the case and found her to be guilty of breaking their very strict Privacy Policy that protects the guests. She faced repercussions (and I got a full refund. I'll explain below). Most conversations that I had with this woman were over text messages so everything here I can prove via text message and so my recounting of the situation is not misconstrued by my memory.
She entered the house twice without getting my permission. The second time she entered she brought someone else with her, she moved my things around, went through my fridge and took pictures of my belongings. And that’s just what she told me about, I presume she was snooping around.
Her communication was extremely poor and verbally and emotionally abusive. She was negligent about sharing important information regarding the use and function of the house so when something would come up she would IMMEDIATELY blame me saying that I did something. And then usually it would turn out that she either forgot to do something herself, or forgot to give me proper instructions. This happened multiple times. Her pattern is to project all of her problems onto other people and point the finger of blame. It got very old after a while to have her be so explosive, tyrannical, uncooperative, and rude to me (all provable in text). To her credit she would be chill after she would calm down (like the next day) and we could communicate peacefully again.
There was MOLD growing in a few dark corner pockets on the ceiling of the bedroom. I was sick with a cough the entire 5 weeks that I was there (and it wasn’t covid because I got tested 4 times). I have never in my life had a cough that lasted that long. When I told her about the mold she FREAKED out and blamed it on me. That's when she entered the house without my permission while I was gone. Then she conjured up a lie that it was just dirt and that it wasn’t there before I moved in and somehow I got dirt in the corners of the ceiling above my bed (but there wasn’t dirt anywhere else around). I asked her to explain to me how dirt got up there. This was when she became uncooperative, rude and honestly tyrannical. She refused to answer my questions and said verbatim (in text) “I do not have to explain anything to you” and insisted that I clean it up myself. Ironically, when she entered the house the second time without my permission she went to go chemically treat the “dirt” spots with mold cleaner. WHY would she need to put mold cleaning chemicals to clean up a little dirt? That was enough for me to realize that she in fact was lying, because obviously she was still concerned about mold growing in her house enough to break Airbnb’s strict Privacy Policy that protects the guest.
I found her to be deceptive and lying. There were red flags in her communication before I even got there. When I asked her about the Wifi before booking (because I make my living online) she became extremely defensive and rude and told me verbatim “If you need city life, that’s where you should go” in response to my inquiry, mind you i'm not from the city and don’t vacation in cities so I found this to be very rude and presumptive about me. Anyway, I was cognizant of that being a red flag, but I decided to give her a chance because I thought “she's a yogi” and maybe she was just having a bad day. I have been a practicing yogi for most of my life and from time to time you come across fakes and this is a PERFECT example of that. I felt deceived because from her Airbnb account she comes off like a yogi - her profile pic is her doing a downward dog (hiding her face), her bio says she teaches yoga (not anymore), and many of the pictures included in the house photo portfolio showed a yoga studio and made it seem like I would have access to a yoga studio. The kind of person she turned out to be is someone who puts chemicals inside of all natural home cleaning product bottles and doesn't tell you (this actually happened and I know because I use Mrs. Meyers all natural cleaning products at home and they don't smell like chemicals or burn my skin the way her chemical filled bottles do).
DO NOT BE FOOLED the yoga studio that she puts on display in the photos as if it can be a part of your experience is extremely deceptive. I never felt comfortable going to do yoga there because it was basically a part of her home. Her child’s toys were all over the place, it was messy, her washer and dryer were kept in there and her kitchen window peered inside of the studio. The vibe was completely off, it was very typical to hear her yelling to her young child throughout the day from across the property even. It wasn’t a peaceful, welcoming or inviting place to do yoga. Additionally, she only invited me to use it after I inquired about it about a week later.
LOCATION: The neighborhood is filled with