Staying at Robert’s place was a nightmare. At 8 am on the first morning, we were woken up by very loud hammering and banging occurring literally right outside our window. The room was shaking that we thought this was an earthquake. We opened the curtain and saw a construction worker on the roof 2 feet from our bedroom window. We immediately called Robert, who unhelpfully said he had no control over this and that we could cancel our reservation or stay in his basement. The first thing I did when I arrived was to make my boyfriend check out his dark basement, so it obviously didn’t make me feel comfortable to sleep in there. It also wouldn’t have helped because there was a loud construction machine right in front of where the basement would be. The construction occurred again on the next morning.

Robert knew of this construction from his previous guests and made NO mention of these major disturbances in the listing or communication with us prior to our arrival. He made NO effort to contact the workers and work out a different time for them to do work on his roof. The work is done on HIS house, but he left his guests to suffer through the disturbances for two mornings in a row and deal with the situation without any input. His attitude was simply I have no control over this, deal with it on your own or leave.

When we filed for a petition for get a partial refund, Robert was very condescending and rude in his responses. He called us “high maintenance prima donnas” and suggested that we were immature for sleeping in past 8 AM on my weekend vacation in Seattle, as his other guests were all “mature” and left early in the morning so they were not disturbed by the construction work. He even flat out lied about other things (that he offered us a refund being one).

There were other communication issues and things that he tried to blame us for. We arrived late at night in October, when the outside temperature is in the low 60s. There are no temperature controls or air vents in the room. The only heating source in the room is this arcane water heater, so we set the temperature to low 70s. However, after we raised our concerns about construction, Robert blamed us for violating his house rules by changing the temperature and wanted to charge us for it. He then mentioned there were space heaters, but he never mentioned this to us before or during our stay. How can you expect guests to stay in a room in the 60s without providing any source of heating and expect them to be comfortable?

Overall, this was a horrible Airbnb experience for my boyfriend (who has stayed in over 10 Airbnbs) and I. The host was incommunicative, inconsiderate, and insulting. We suggest thinking twice before staying with Robert.