I rented the apartment because I was attending a national meeting nearby and since I was taking my family, I needed a place with a kitchen and dishwasher to get my baby’s bottles ready and wash them.
Pros: the apartment is nice and well located.
Cons: Short version: dealing with the host was an absolute headache. I am surprised how everyone stated how nice and responsive he was, when he was extremely rude to me. Bias perhaps? I have used airbnb and other rental services in the past and I had always had a great relationship with them, this was by far my worst experience. Also, we had lots of minor issues with the apartment that I would not have expected with the price that we were paying, and he found ways to be rude with just about every interaction we had.
Long version:
Here are the major incidents that occurred with this reservation:
•He first contacted me about 6 weeks prior to check in. Unfortunately I missed the first email (new mom going back to work) and his email the next day was very aggressive and demanding requesting that I fill out some forms right away. I filled out the forms and he asked me for copies of IDs, which I didn’t feel comfortable providing as it is my understanding that per Airbnb rules, you don’t have to provide IDs. I honestly forgot to follow up on it afterwards (I had more things to think about with a newborn at home). I didn’t hear back from him again until the day before the trip when he called me 6 times while I was at work, very upset because I had not sent the IDs and that if I didn’t send them within the next 15 minutes we would not be able to stay at the apt. Given the short timeline, I didn’t have a chance to contact Airbnb to review if that was allowed. I sent the IDs hoping this would be the last thing I would have to deal with.
•We arrived at the apartment building around 10p from the airport to find that there was no way for us to enter the apartment. We contacted the host who first stated that he thought we had already checked in that afternoon, so why couldn’t we get in now (we hadn’t checked in yet, I’m not sure why he thought this, but it seemed like he was just trying to make up some sort of excuse for not leaving the apartment open for us), followed by over an hour of some pretty impolite back and forth trying to get an e-key to work and multiple trips back down to the front desk, the host got the front desk to give us the master key to get into the apartment. By this time it was after midnight after a long day flying with a baby.
•We tried to get settled in and went to run the dishwasher to sanitize the bottle parts for the baby and it wouldn’t run. After some other rude comments including why couldn’t we just use the sink (that was the whole reason why I rented an apartment, so I could have a dishwasher to wash the 1,000 baby bottle parts!!) and other comments implying that it was just that we were not capable of running a dishwasher, he finally sent someone to look at the dishwasher who was able to fix it by resetting the entire unit (not something I would expect the average tenant to know how to do).
•We then started to notice that our master bedroom got significantly warmer than the rest of the apartment. My husband checked the windows and realized that the large window was cracked open, so he tried to close it only to find that the window crank spun, but did not move the window at all. I had others look at it as well and it did not work. We messaged the host explaining the issue with the crank not working and he didn’t respond for 2 days. We messaged him again and he said “Not sure why you can’t close it yourself, but I’ll see what can be done”…. We were there for 2 more days, my husband, baby and I in a hot room and my parents in a freezing room due to the imbalance in A/C, and no one ever came to fix the window.
•The last day we tried to use the oven and it didn’t work. At that point, we were so done trying to address issues with the host that we didn’t even try to contact him (we hadn’t heard regarding the window either), and since we were not planning to use it again, we just let it go.
This was by far my worst airbnb experience.