We made this a week-long family vacation with our three young children and after a long drive to Newport, we were looking forward to relaxing.
Upon arrival, we were met by a yellow jacket nest above the front door, an odor of cat urine throughout the home, half-eaten beef jerky in the refrigerator, dirty dishes, a safety hazard in the middle of the floor, a just-recently finished construction zone and never cleaned back bunkhouse that our children were looking forward to staying in and overflowing garbage and recycling bins.
There were no cleaning supplies on-site, so luckily we brought our own sanitizing sprays and cleaning wipes (a pandemic behavior change) and we ended up on our hands and knees scrubbing the floors, wiping down all of the surfacing, running the dishwasher and washing machine just to get settled into the home.
We promptly alerted the host to the issues as we encountered them but the customer service we were met with was abysmal — we were asked to take out the previous guest’s garbage, told the yellow-jacket nest with what appeared to be 20+ bees in and out right above the home’s entrance with small children ‘would be fine’ and brushed off throughout our stay.
Given it was high season and we had driven 5+ hours with three small children, there were few options, but we did reach out to the host and Airbnb for support throughout our stay.
I’m not one to complain and if I do, I try to be as kind and polite as possible (I’m a Midwesterner and that’s all I know), but this experience and the host’s poor customer service was shocking and terrible enough for me to share.