For the wedding of my daughter I booked an apartment for 3 nights from host Sam. The listing showed a living room, an eat-in kitchen, a bedroom with closets and a bathroom. But there was NO bedroom! The living room had been made into a bedroom and the bed had been placed right next to the entrance door. The street noise spilled in and by night the room was rather bright because the outdoor lights were barely dimmed by thin curtains.
Since we attended a wedding my wife and I had to bring some proper attire, Suit and dresses for several events. The entire apartment didn't have any closet, hooks or bars to hang anything! We ended up hanging our things on the edge of the mantelpiece.
The bathroom was pretty much bare-bones; ONE hook to hang a towel or something, and a little ring next to the sink. Whatever "stuff" you need had to placed on the wet floor. A soap dish would have been nice in the shower!
Our apartment was furnished with a nice looking "smart" tv for which I wasn't smart enough to operate. After cycling several times through all apps and options I ended up with a few unknown channels and one news channel: Fox! - Any attempt to use a streaming app ended with the notice that there is "no internet connection".
A keypad to enter is a good idea. But it should be a push button one. On the door to this apartment the keypad was a screen with hardly visible numbers that only lit up a bit brighter when the first number was pushed. It took some trial and error to get used to it. - The instructions for our check-in gave us two different key-numbers!
Communication was a oneway. Initially I had informed Sam that we would like to bring our dog and that I had not noticed the extra pet fee. There upon he sent a request for the fee. But a couple of days later we decided not to bring the dog and asked the host not to charge the pet fee or refund it. No response. A few days before check-in again I sent an email asking to refund the fee. Again no response. Doing a reverse check with my bank and credit card showed me that the fee hadn't been charged. I know, my lack of diligence. But the courtesy of a short response would have eliminated it from my to-do list.
In an email on check-out day, Sam, our host, had the chuzpe to asked us to give him heads up on our review. Anything less than 5 stars would not be good for his "small business"!
We ended up paying over $ 260 per night for 2/3 of an apartment that was booked.
With these type of "corporate" hosts, which AirBnB apparently tolerates, I will be careful in the future to book through them again.