I’ve been using Airbnb for years, and while some places have been better than others, they’ve all been at least decent—some terrific. This is the first negative review I’ve ever left, and I hope it’ll be the last.
Simply put, there were roaches. The owner messaged me to say that they were “palmetto bugs.” Palmetto bugs are, in fact, roaches. One was crawling up the wall of the bathroom when we arrived. We found another one under the towels.
We contacted Jake to let him know; he told us that it was inevitable at this time of year. Then he told us to get a broom and shoo them out. We contacted him to see if we could just be refunded because this was not what we signed up for, clearly. He stopped communicating with us.
We moved all of our stuff up to the loft area and slept there that first night. The next day, we saw one up there, by the bed, as well. We got a hotel and left.
Jake never responded to our request for a refund, so Airbnb stepped in, saw the photos we had taken (pro tip: document everything) and promptly refunded us.
I’ll continue to use Airbnb because I don’t want to let this one negative experience sully my entire perception of a great company, but buyer beware of this place. It’s clearly not in good shape, and the owners do not care one bit.