My husband and I decided to cancel our booking upon 15 minutes of our arrival at Alexander’s apartment. We have stayed at more than 7 airbnb apartments in four different countries and had certain expectations. Unfortunately, this unit did not meet our expectations for the following reasons:
•	The host’s toiletries were left in the bathroom, specifically his toothbrush in a cup and discolored washcloth in the shower
•	There were half consumed containers of food (not just condiments but things like hummus, bagels, eggs, etc.) in the fridge and the freezer was full, and we were scheduled to stay for one week
•	There were dirty clothes in the laundry hamper
•	There was garbage left in the trash can
•	There was sports equipment shoved behind living room furniture that was unsightly
•	There were large items (bicycle and a large chair) in the dining and living rooms that were not in the photos and they made the room smaller
•	Most of the closets and shelves were occupied by the host’s personal belongings, leaving little space for the guests to unpack
•	The bed did not look like it was made by a professional person, so after seeing all of the above, there was no chance we were going to sleep in it …
There were other minor issues leading up to our arrival that should have been red flags, such as how we were instructed to (and not to) communicate with others at the building, that we should not eat or drink on his nice couch, to not consume his food and drinks, to be very careful with his expensive furniture, etc. I have never received such unusual instructions from other hosts of Airbnb, so I should have cancelled while I was able to get a full refund. Beyond the airbnb-mandated timeframe, the host needs to agree to a full refund. Just to be clear, we did not get a full refund.
Through this experience, I have learned that guests need to contact airbnb within 24 hours of checking in to get their money back in full when a unit does not meet expectations. We made a mistake by communicating directly with the host and missed the time limit to reach out to airbnb.