I have used Airbnb many times in my travels. This is the first negative review I have ever given.
Four of us rented the apartment on a Friday and Saturday night in September, 2022. In their house rules they wrote: “As a provider of medical stay housing, we have a zero-tolerance policy and do not allow any smoking, parties, loud music, or disturbances.” With that type of statement, we expected we would be able to sleep at night.
On Friday night we retired at 9 p.m. only to be awaken at 10:30 p.m. to loud sounds coming from right in front of our window — people partying and arguing, cars honking, revving of engines, smashing glass and most notable, a deep and constant base sound that literally shook the walls of the bedrooms. A stream of people who were out for a good time walked right in front of our window throughout the night — talking, laughing and arguing loudly. Flashing lights lit up our bedroom all night. The next day I learned the reason for the commotion: A dance club play rap and Latino music is right next door. The base shook the walls so much that I assume there are shared walls with the club.
We contacted the hosts at midnight about the situation, and to the credit of the management team, someone responded promptly with expressions of concern and an offer to bring a white noise machine and ear plugs the next day. Unfortunately there is no amount of rainfall noise that could ever drown out the extremely loud noise coming from the street. I had my own ear plugs in the entire night, and it was no help. The noise and thumping were that unbelievably loud.
Friday night the commotion went on until 2:30 p.m. Saturday night, however, was worse. In addition to all that had been going on on Friday night, Saturday brought two incidents of gunfire right in from of our unit. After each incident of gunfire, police came with sirens wailing and lights strobing. People were arguing, honking car horns and smashing glass until 6 a.m.
No reasonable person could possibly have slept through the disturbances. I shared all of this information with the hosts and their response was that they cannot control the outside environment, which is a fair statement. They could, however, provide a better description of what to expect. This was not a simple matter of not getting sleep, but we were fearful for our safety.
Had we known what we would experience, we would never have booked this unit.