Let me start by saying that we LOVE Airbnb and the event described below was a true anomaly compared to all our other stays. That said, this was by far the worst experience we have had with any Airbnb room and management.
The wooden stairs going up to our room were very steep and slippery; dangerous if you have mobility issues. On our way up we joked about the 3 canes hung over the railing at the bottom. The “walkway/balcony” going to our room was very narrow and the wood boards you walk on are showing severe signs of age and water damage (like boards on a very old dock).
The room’s overall appearance was dingy, dark, and unsanitary. There are holes in the dirty lampshade, cracks in the walls, mold in the shower, linens were gross and looked to have not been replaced from the previous renter (e.g. toothpaste and other stains on the towels). When I sat down on the squeaky and uncomfortable bed I noticed a crack in the floor. The “crack” moved when I ran my toe over it, I looked around and there was more hair, dirt and a couple of dead bugs - YUK! We checked the bottoms of our feet and they were coal-black after only 10 minutes of walking in that tiny room.
No way were going to stay there a minute longer and lucked out finding a ($$$$) room at the Omni six or so blocks away. I took a few pics of the room’s condition before we left. So we (a couple of 60 year olds) grabbed our luggage, left the key in the drop for the manager and huffed and puffed the 6 blocks (late at night – through some shady areas at the edge of the French Quarter). We decided to put this behind us and focus on having a nice vacation.
The manager called us 2 days later about our “checking-out” of the room. I think the only reason he called was that we had posted a much milder, but negative, review. He said the room was non-refundable and gave us a line about getting the room fully cleaned for the next renter, yada-yada. He then texted us (via the Air B&B app) asking how he could “make this better”. I responded that the fair thing to do would be to refund the $1,200 we gave him to stay there and that we understood their policy, but we did not receive the promised service due to the condition of the room. He texted back that he would try to get a refund (after speaking with his partners) if we would change our negative review. I texted back that I would “amend” the review if they refunded what we paid for the room within 24hrs. The amendment would have been to ONLY add that they were nice enough to return what we paid for the unused room. These texts were all done using the Air B&B app so there is a record of this conversation. I also took screen shots of the texts because this whole exchange was starting to feel hinky.
So what happened? The manager ghosted us for a few days and then posted a review that we cannot see until we post ours. Since I cannot see what he wrote I have to assume the worst and determined it was necessary to expand the review to include the entirety of our experience.
I understand that within the Airbnb culture “glowing” reviews provide larger and continuous profit for owners and some, hopefully very few, owners/managers try to pressure or entice you to change a review, but inaccurate reviews lead to experiences like ours.