Unfortunately, this is the first Airbnb stay in years for which my review will not please the host. Sam was good at helping us check in and resolve small issues (“extra bedsheets”) etc. —and at first, when we checked into the apartment in the evening, we were tired (having driven for more than 8 hours) and things on the surface looked ok, but next morning we discovered issues that will give me no pleasure to write about here.
As we were trying to make breakfast, we realized there were cockroaches in the kitchen; we killed a few of those bugs and decided not to make a big deal. We thought maybe it’s just a few of them. We went out and when we returned in the afternoon and tried to make some food for our kids, roaches appeared again in the kitchen and in one of the bedrooms. Needless to say, we were repelled; and some of the guests wanted to leave the apartment immediately.
Upon closer inspection, other issues came to the surface. Broken sofa bed in the living room, stains in the mattress visible from space, broken seats, broken shampoo dispensers left behind in the bathroom floor that were also dirty—visible thick dirt which doesn’t take much to clean, but you can see it along floorboards, sticky surfaces; blinds dirty with residue from killed mosquitos or bugs—who knows?Things that seemed to never have been cleaned.
When I contacted Sam about the infestation problem, he offered to send pest control to “check and treat” while we still were in the apartment. We assumed he said “check” because maybe he didn’t believe us. “Treat,” as if the infestation problem is not a process that requires use of chemical substance. Or who knows? While we were there. While we were on vacation, Sam asked us to receive pest control and deal with any consequences. We had paid almost $400 a night to be spectators of pesto control in a house with four adults and three children. While we had only two days to enjoy a city which we had planned to see for years. While we wanted nothing to do anymore with that house but leave immediately.
It didn’t make sense and it sounded inappropriate on his part to offer such a choice. But what sounded more disrespectful from Sam was that instead of taking full responsibility for the problem, he made excuses and said things like “roaches are endemic… “even in airbnbs.” Roaches may indeed be endemic, but in most cases, they are so when there is an underlying issue with cleanliness—which Sam’s apartment has. But in many years that I’ve stayed in airbnbs in a dozen countries, I’ve never had to report an issue of infestation. Sam was trying to rationalize the problem, not own it.
I took videos and pictures of bugs scurrying across the kitchen floor of Sam’s apartment. I took videos and photos of all the broken and dirty things I mentioned above. I sent all this evidence to Sam and told him we were checking out on the second day (we were scheduled to stay there for 4 days) and demanded a refund. He ignored that. Apparently he didn’t read my messages and on the fourth day when, by now, we had found another accommodation in the city, Sam sent me a mocking message saying “I hope you had a nice stay” and went on to remind me the check out time. I asked him to read my previous message from two days before. He never responded.
I have raised the issue with Airbnb now, because Sam was unwilling to consider owning the problem and refunding us for an experience that disrupted our vacation and left a bitter taste in us. I hope he learns from this and treats his future guests with proper respect when serious issues arise.
Thank you.