I am typically very much against leaving a negative review for anything ever, I just don't believe in cycling that energy, however my husband insisted that I lovingly let others know our experience in an authentic way so they can know what's, the way we would have liked to. :) Basically, we booked this apartment for our week long trip to Portland. From the listing it looked bright, happy, and from the word "apartment" we obviously expected something different. When we arrived, we found a door with a lockbox that led down some really old and dirty stairs underneath a house, as we walked down to the basement we noticed there was trash, laundry, and a very odd old smell, but opened the door to find the place in the photos. We were both taken back since we didn't know it was going to literally be an underground basement unit with very little natural light, we could immediately hear everyone walking around and talking loudly upstairs. I think we were just taken back by how old the house was in contrast to how the listing was advertised as so new and modern. We tried sleeping there for one night to see if we could adjust, but the next morning I messaged the host to let her know we felt the listing was misleading since we would have never booked an old basement unit with some modern decorations, we would have rather booked a super nice hotel for the same price if we had known. She wrote a very professional message back apologizing and admitting she left the word "basement" out of the listing however, originally noted it was "subterranean"...and assuring us she would update the listing from now on to be more accurate, which she has done. I would have never connected the words subterranean and that apartment in one sentence so my husband said it was just a way to fluff up the wording so people didn't know it was an old basement converted into an apartment. We just wished it had been stated a little more clearly how old the house was and that we would literally be underground. She told me she was really sorry for being misleading and would consider a partial refund for our remaining accommodations. We were ok with this, and packed our bags, checked out, got a hotel, then as soon as we informed her we had left, she cancelled the reservation and informed us she would be giving us no refund at all because it was not her fault, directly after updating the listing accordingly. So, as you can see, this situation would frustrate literally anyone. Like I said, I don't believe in complaining, but I really wanted others to know what they were getting into. If it were the other way around and I was a host, there is no way I would have refused a refund when I knew I had been misleading. Feels selfish and it's bad for business. All in all, we had a fabulous and oh-so magical rest of our time in Portland and found the most incredible whimsy airbnb called the "magic barn," look it up.
Update: I would like to add that I received an incredible message from airbnb support saying they really felt for my case and tried everything they could to get any sort of refund back from the host but she was very uncooperative. They have incredible customer service, and expressed that they went to many case managers to deal with the issue and all agreed we should have ethically been refunded.