Just to give you a little backstory of us, we have been to Maui ten plus times . We’ve used Airbnb for a majority of our stays. And have stayed 4 times at Maui Kamaole and love the condos, especially the pool area. When we arrived Julisa was great at communicating with us. But upon arrival the place felt very worn down and not entirely what we were expecting. Some money and time need to go into this unit (Ants in the bathroom, a very springy and uncomfortable bed, rusted silverware, stained tub)
I went to make sure the AC fan was on and used my flashlight to lean down and noticed the vent was caked in black mold spores. We peaked inside the unit as well and noticed how much mold was inside. So we checked the other unit and it was the exact same scenario. We were staying for a month with our two young babies and we knew it wasn’t a safe situation to be breathing this in. We contacted Julisa to let her know our findings as well as a few other things about the place. She offered to help us by accommodating a few things and was really helpful and kind. She expressed she didn’t know much about black mold in AC units but it was nearly impossible to get a professional out to clean them. But she would maybe try to come out and clean them herself. My husband offered to help clean them as well.
But during their phone call, I looked in the units more with my flashlight and knew this was a situation that a professional needed to take care of. And I no longer felt it was safe for my family to be breathing this in, let alone be cleaned by someone who didn’t know much about black mold in AC units.
We know the risk of black mold exposure and especially over time so we contacted Julisa to let her know we needed a new place. I have two young babies and i as well, suffer from an auto immune disease and we couldn’t risk it. I wanted her to understand it wasn’t anything personal but we have babies and without a professional being available to clean it, we couldn’t stay. We contacted Airbnb to help us with the process. Julisa then completely flipped. We had texted back and forth a few times on our personal numbers but because I felt like she was being very passive aggressive - I took the communicate strictly to the Airbnb messaging. We asked her if we could pay for the overlap time (4 hours until we got into our next rental) and she agreed. Then while we were out of the unit grabbing lunch, she proceeded to text us on our personal number saying she was going to go into the unit to start cleaning the AC’s. While our stuff was there and we weren’t home. We asked
Her not too and told her she agreed to let us pay until 3 for a checkout time.
During our communication she continually badgered us for wanting to leave, made multiple comments about my choice as a mother and the safety concern of my kids and constantly made everything about her profit and burdened us with that. She had another family come immediately after our checkout so she wasn’t missing a beat of any income.
She also claimed to be an expert all of a sudden on black mold. And told us that more than 80% of houses have black mold in them. Which was laughable and not true.
It seemed very unsafe for a nonprofessional to clean those AC units
And have another family come stay directly after. We sent multiple pictures to Airbnb and if you goggle black mold in AC unit there was ZERO doubt about it.
After we left and the ordeal was over, she continued messaging me telling me it was just “dust.” And it came right off. She continued to message us after I asked her to leave me alone. And she tried ridiculing us over the entire thing. She told us multiple times she was a psychotherapist. So you would have thought she would be able to have some empathy for our babies and medical situation and understand it wasn’t personal.
Honestly, the entire thing didn’t have to go this way. We felt terrible that we had booked her place for a month and had to cancel but it wasn’t an option for us to stay. It wasn’t fair that she was putting the entire burden of the situation on us. She couldn’t understand or even pretend to understand for one moment. We were professional and kind the entire time and she was far from that. Honestly it was a miserable situation. I hope that moving forward she would have more professionalism and kindness.