I selected Joann’s place because it was listed as pet friendly and I needed somewhere to stay while working in New York with my wife and two small dogs. Upon arrival I was greeted by her husband who was very nice and showed us around.
Here’s where things turn ugly
After her husband left I almost immediately received a message from Joann accusing me of trying to sneak my dogs into her house. I told her I was not sneaking them in at all. The place was listed as pet friendly and I had let her husband meet them when we got there. She continued to go on about how terrible what I had done was. She harassed me until I asked her if she wanted us to just pack up and leave and she said I would have to pay a $350 pet sanitizing fee because they had pet allergies. I said ok I understand, if you would have just politely asked for this from the start I would’ve paid and we could’ve moved on without her yelling at me like I’m a child all night. When I asked where I should send the money to she told me that she would meet me in person in two days to collect it. At this point I went back to the listing and took a screen shot of where it said pet friendly and also took a video of myself navigating from her page to where it said pet friendly so I couldn’t be accused of photoshopping anything. I thought this would be it for the night but she kept complaining. Telling me this is so unbelievable and that it’s never happened before, which is a flat out lie because if you read her other reviews there’s a very similar story. She then changed the listing to say no pets and comes back to me saying “oh by the way I just checked and the listing says no pets.” When I told her I had screen shots and videos to prove my case she got mad again.
The next day this wasn’t sitting right with me so I contacted Airbnb and let them know what was going on. They informed me that I was correct and the listing was pet friendly when I booked it and they apologized for how rude Joann was. They also told me that she is not allowed to charge more after the fact nor is she allowed to accept money outside of the Airbnb app. When they called her to inform her that she could not collect an extra pet sanitizing fee she told them she wanted to cancel the reservation. At this point my dogs had been in there already for two days so if there really was pet allergies the place would have to be sanitized regardless. Kicking us out now had nothing to do with the dogs and was just her being spiteful and petty because she didn’t get her way. So now she has to pay the sanitizing fee and she lost a whole months rent.
Airbnb issued me a full refund including the two nights I had stayed there and helped me find a new place. I know Joann will respond to this with more rude accusations because I’ve seen how she has treated other negative reviews. I won’t have a chance to address her response but look at the tone and ask yourself if this is the kind of person you would want to rent from.