This is our first and last Air BnB experience, as it was so terrible. We needed a quiet, comfortable place to stay after a house fire, during a pandemic. We needed somewhere calm to shelter in place, as I had a torn ligament in my knee, and was traumatized by the fire. Terry promised to provide this, but as soon as she took our first payment before we arrived, we knew that something was up.
We were specifically looking for a quiet, separate home with a garage. She took payment in full for our first 7 days, and only then did she let us know that the garage would not be accessible for the first few days. She was having the driveway and garage paved. Well, since we had already paid over $500, we decided to go ahead and go with the last-minute booking. Unfortunately, 3 days turned into over a week that we would not have access to the garage! This seriously complicated our already complicated situation. We were promised that we would be given a discount to make up for that lie, but that promise never materialized. She suckered us into staying on extra time with the promise of giving us a good deal in the longer stay, but that was just another lie. Like the toilet paper that she promised to bring us during the week. She never brought it, or even asked us to see if we needed anything.
The third lie we noted was that the house was not suitable for the 3-4 people that it promised to sleep. There are two bedrooms, but the listing is a flat-out lie. She states that there are 2 beds in the second bedroom. THERE ARE NOT TWO BEDS. There is a day bed. Period. Don’t believe the listing. Our child coming over for two days, causing us hundreds of extra dollars to be spent (she charged us the full adult rate for this child for the entire 7 days) should be refunded,as the room was not adequate.
Our peace and calm were utterly destroyed by the constant cement workers and tree-cutters. For literally 14 days of the stay, at 7am, there was shouting, loud trucks, beeping, loud music, sawing, hammering, and every other kind of noise, for 8-10 hours a day. We couldn’t sleep, think, or work. It was miserable. Not only that, but these were non-essential businesses that didn’t need to be operating during a pandemic. She put us in peril of catching covid, as we constantly had these people on the property trying to interact with us. It was truly astonishing the lack of care that she showed during this time.
The thing that really takes the cake is the way she handled our thermostat during our stay. We had temperatures from 39-85 during the stay. On the hottest day, we noticed that we could not cool the house below 80 degrees. Upon inspection, we discovered that she purposely locked the thermostat, preventing us from turning on the AC. This behavior continued throughout our stay. When we asked her to unlock the thermostat and allow us to control it, she acted like she didn’t know what was up, but then finally agreed to allow us to control it. We just wanted to keep the temps between 74-and 77. No big deal, right? Well, this busy-body kept locking the thermostat, basically every day. On the coldest day, rainy and 39, she locked the thermostat to 61 degrees. We were so cold, we had to huddle by the oven to keep warm. She did not respond to our pleas that night at all, not by phone, text or Air BnB message.
As if this weren’t enough, she is coming up with justification to charge us extra cleaning fees, when we used the “stolen” cleaning supplies under the bathroom cabinet to clean before we left. She also wrongly accused us of leaving trash.
This is the worst host of any building in 30 years of traveling the world. Both of us have lived and traveled in multiple foreign countries, and know how to navigate most any situation. I have to say that neither of us have had the misfortune of paying so much to stay in a place that offered so little. Never once have we seen a hotel, hostel, B and B where the guest is unable to adjust the temperature controls. Freezing and sweltering in a room that you’re paying for the privilege to stay in is just not right. This is not a third world country, but she sure made it feel like we were in one. As a realtor, Terry ought to know and do better.