Let me preface this by saying that I am not a difficult person to please with accommodations. I’ve been using Airbnb for awhile now and have never complained or written a bad review. This stay drove me to my breaking point. I am utterly disgusted how the entire stay turned out.
A coworker and I were staying in Chicago for a tradeshow and arrived late, around 8:30 pm on a Saturday night. The building is a multi level building that looks ok from the outside. When you open the door it’s a complete disaster. The door to walk in was absolutely filthy. We got past it. When you look up, there is a huge whole in the ceiling from a leaking shower. We got past it. The foyer and stairwell smell so gross- like super strong curry or animal urine. We got past it. The stairway upstairs is slanted so bad that it looks like the house is on a full tilt. We got past it.
Walking in, we were spooked. It’s a dark place at night and there isn’t much furniture. But we did a walk through and noticed that the house wasn’t kept up very well. Nothing we could do now, it was just a dump and we would have to get used to it. We went out to dinner and had cocktails. The neighborhood is cool but be careful, it’s still really shady at night.
The morning when we woke up, we noticed the shower leaked. We started to notice mold all over the place. In the bed rooms, in the kitchen.. oh well what should we do? Complain to the owner? Nah he will just come in and be angry probably that we are too critical, this is how he keeps it.
As we spent more time there, the weather got colder. The ac units in the windows had huge gaps letting the air in so I put my towel in them to keep the cold air out. When we tried to put the heat on, the heat didn’t work. I messaged the owner and 8 hours later he said he wished I would have told him the day before... we just dealt with it by that point. Yes I took a video of me trying to turn it on, something was broken.
So all in we documented everything with pictures and videos to upload to social media so that people can see what it was like to stay in a place unfit for human living. Here is a list of things that were wrong:
Bugs on the wall in back bedroom
One of the smoke detector in the kitchen on the fridge.
An Ac unit plugged into an extension cord.
Huge gaps in window ac and ac unit.
Mold in every room. Yes every room, look on the floors.
Mold in the shower.
A leaking shower and after 4 minutes (we timed it) it starts making a ridiculous noise.
Pubic hair in bathroom.
Heat not working. Thermostat wouldn’t change temp.
Tiles coming up from water leaking.
Leaking drip pipe in kitchen.
I have no idea how this place has the ratings it does, I’m just more shocked air BNB would allow people to rent out a place that no one should be living in.
All I was able to recoup was $67 from air BNB. The owner refused to refund me anything through mediation. Wouldn’t even respond to my pics that I sent him. absolutely the worst place I’ve ever seen in my entire life, good luck staying here!