THIS HOST LIED AND KICKED US OUT, AFTER DARK, WITH OUR TODDLER. Please protect your safety and your sanity, and don't book with this host.
I've been using AirBnB for at least 3 trips / year for 6 years, and I've never had anything like this happen. (Once, there were roaches in our Thanksgiving cabin, BUT THIS WAS LITERALLY WORSE THAN ROACHES ON A HOLIDAY.)
I rented this for 1 night ($230), and we checked in according to Stephen's instructions. I noticed right away some areas of the place were kind of dingy, and the walls near the light switches were showing some dirt. Not a huge deal, but it surprised me given the price per night. Then, in the kitchen drawer next to the dishwasher there was a purple kitchen sponge with LONG BLOND HAIRS wrapped around it. And then I noticed a reddish brown drop and smear on the wall above one of the beds.
It was all unsettling enough that I wiped down some of the surfaces with bleach wipes and decided to send the host a polite message via the app. I literally said, "I know these things totally happen and sometimes things get missed, but wanted to be up front that the cleaning crew missed the mark today." I attached pictures.
He called me right away and was clearly irritated and said repeatedly, "If you're not going to be satisfied with your stay, you can just leave and I'll give you a refund." I tried to reassure him that I wasn't saying that I wanted a refund or to find alternate lodging, since I was staying with my family, and it was getting late. His tone was defensive and he kept mentioning his reviews and that he didn't want a bad review. He mentioned his reviews repeatedly. Again, I stated that I wasn't threatening a bad review, that I was trying to up front about the fact that there were HAIRS ON THE KITCHEN SPONGE and that I thought a direct message about it was the appropriate way to handle it. I thought that we ended the call on an amicable note and he said he'd talking to his "cleaning lady." Afterwards, via text, he offered to have her come out and remove the sponge and wipe down the wall, which I said wasn't necessary because 1) that's silly, 2)we're limiting interactions due to COVID, and 3) I have a child to put to bed. I mentioned my child repeatedly via message and on the phone. I told him that I wanted to request a refund of the $85 cleaning fee, which I submitted via AirBnb's form in their app.
He declined the request, so AirBnb reached to me directly, and I shared the pictures of the sponge and wall, and they said that they would fund the cleaning fee instead. Which I thought was nice, and I thought that was the end of it.
But that's when things got nuts. He sent a message to AirBnb that he felt "unsafe" and was cancelling the reservation. I was literally stunned. All of my interactions with him up to this point were polite, direct, and diplomatic. The AirBnB rep was also stunned and called him to try to persuade him to reconsider. He refused, and sent me a text message saying that we had to vacate immediately and "don't make me get law enforcement involved." (We didn't refuse to leave or anything. He threatened law enforcement at the same time that he told us he was cancelling.)
We were literally in the process of putting our toddler to bed. And when he found out that our toddler is 2 (literally 6 weeks away from 3), he claimed that we were violating his rules because he doesn't allow infants.
I think it's important to note here that we said we were bringing a child when we booked, and I mentioned him in several conversations with the host and he never asked his age or expressed any concerns about him UNTIL AFTER he cancelled our reservation, falsely claimed that we made him feel unsafe, and had to talk to the AirBnB rep who was asking him to reconsider.
The irony is, of course, that I've never felt more unsafe in an AirBnB than having the host lie that we somehow made him feel unsafe (for simply requesting a cleaning fee refund?), telling us to vacate immediately while threatening to send the police there. The whole experience was traumatizing and scary for our family.