Our Top 3 BAD Experiences with Airbnb (& Why We Still LOVE Airbnb Anyway!)
We’ve spent almost all of the past two+ years living in Airbnb apartments. Most of them have been amazing (many even better than expected!), but we’ve had some mediocre and even downright bad experiences with Airbnb. Read on to learn about the three worst of these, plus why we still ABSOLUTELY LOVE Airbnb and use it for all of our long-term stays! Without further ado, here are our top 3 bad experiences with Airbnb, ranked from bad to worst.
If you’re sold on Airbnb after reading about how well they took care of us after each of these incidents, use this link to sign up! You’ll get $40 off your first stay and $15 off your first experience, and we’ll also get a bit of Airbnb credit to use toward a future stay. :)
Our #3 BAD Experience With Airbnb: Toxic Mold in Kolkata, India
We were nervous and excited to go to India. We didn’t know much about it except the basics (and, of course, that we had loved almost all of the Indian food we’d ever had in other countries). Our expectations for our apartment weren’t high: a safe place to sleep with internet (for work).
Upon arrival, everything seemed fine. Our apartment was small, dark, and a bit stale-smelling, but that wasn’t an issue. Neither was the trash-filled narrow alleyway we had to walk down to find our ramshackle door.
The hosts had graciously left us a loaf of bread, which we were ready to devour at that point after almost two days of travel time. I hadn’t expected a toaster in the tiny kitchen, but upon seeing one, I popped in a couple slices… and to my dismay, sparks soon started flying out of it. (I don’t mean little burning crumbs. I mean full-blown crackling electrical sparks.)
I unplugged the toaster, pushed it into the (dry) sink just to be safe, and we sat down with fresh slices of un-toasted bread to eat while we reassessed.
Right around then, I started sniffling and sneezing.
We didn’t think much of it; maybe I was just tired from the long days of travel. That is, until Gustavo started sniffling and sneezing too. Oddly, we were both fine once we left the apartment, but would start sneezing again as soon as we stepped inside.
By the second day there, I was sneezing copious amounts of blood. At that point, we had had enough, and decided to investigate.
Once we moved the bed, we found this huge strip of mold that had been perfectly hidden behind the headboard.
Sure enough, we found a giant strip of mold that just happened to be perfectly hidden behind the large headboard of the bed. In other words, we had been sleeping with our faces just inches away from a huge amount of mold.
Now, I don’t want to say that the hosts deliberately used the headboard to hide an existing mold problem. That’s the kind of assumption that one can get in legal trouble for saying. I WILL say, though, that the host didn’t seem particularly surprised to learn about the mold. I got the impression that he was more frustrated that we wanted to check out rather than apologetic or concerned -- and his proposed solution was to paint over the mold. (Because naturally a layer of paint is the solution to mold that’s toxic enough to cause someone to constantly sneeze up a bunch of blood!)
We left. One of our simple rules is that risking our health isn’t worth whatever monthly amount of rent we’re paying.
Our #2 BAD Experience With Airbnb: Electrocution in Flores, Guatemala
Gustavo and I usually travel on our own, but my mom joined us for a few weeks in Guatemala. So, for our stay in Flores, we rented a bigger place than usual, with two bedrooms and two bathrooms.
Our first unpleasant discovery was that the listing had lied; it had one bedroom and one landing area with a bed squeezed into it. To get to the bedroom, you had to go through the landing area, meaning whoever slept there had no privacy at all.
Worse, only the bathroom attached to the bedroom had hot water. So whoever slept in the landing area couldn’t take a hot shower without walking through the bedroom.
The “plumber couldn’t find” this leak, according to our host (notice the active droplet and the wet mineral trails).
Obviously this is hardly an ideal situation when you’re staying with your mom and your partner!
Anyway, we decided we could cope with this, since we were only supposed to be there for a couple weeks.
We were also prepared to cope with the raised dirt tunnels that insects had built on several walls, and the filthy kitchen and dried-food-caked dishes that we found when we arrived. Plus the deceptive pictures that showed nice living room furniture (in reality, there was a weird hammock stretching awkwardly across the living room). Oh, and the bathroom sink with a leak that left the floor constantly wet.
What we couldn’t cope with, though, was the shower that gave me a pretty intense electric shock when I tried to adjust the water temperature while I was in it.
Following our rule about “health over wealth,” we immediately checked out and moved to a nearby hotel.
As usual in our handful of bad experiences, the host was less than helpful: she refused to refund us for the days we hadn’t stayed yet, insisted that a plumber couldn’t find a leak (odd, considering I managed to find it in about five seconds by, you know, looking at the trail of wet mineral deposits on the wall plus the place that drops of water were dripping from), and suggested that I should have worn shoes in the shower if I didn’t want to get electrocuted. What?!
Our #1 BAD Experience With Airbnb: Bed Bugs in Marrakech, Morocco
This was the first of our bad experiences with Airbnb - and remains the worst.
Morocco was the first real stop in our adventures as full-time travelers. (I don’t count Berlin, since that’s like a second home at this point.) We were so excited to get there, and immediately fell in love with the riad where we were staying. Our accommodations were simple, but charming, and perfectly adequate for us.
After a few days, though, I started to get a rash on my arms.
It spread to my stomach and back.
It appeared on Gustavo.
We asked the host about it, and he claimed it was because we had been petting some stray cats. Somehow they had given us the rash, he insisted. (You’ll understand in a moment why I’m not confident that he actually believed this at all.)
Gustavo’s bed bug bites from one of our bad experiences with Airbnb. Our arms and stomachs looked like this too!
We went to several pharmacies and even a charming apothecary. We came away with various lotions, pills, and salves. None of them did any good.
Finally, one night, we were lying in bed watching Netflix to distract ourselves from the itching, and I saw a bug scurry across the covers.
“...what do bed bugs look like?” I asked Gustavo, a horrible thought occurring to me for the first time.
You see, somehow we had both always thought bed bugs were tiny things, smaller than fleas. So it wasn’t until right then, when I Googled “bed bugs,” that we saw what they actually looked like. You guessed it: identical to the one we had seen running on the covers.
We picked up our pillows and found a couple more. There was a dead one under the mattress. Now that we knew what we were looking for, the telltale black specks that melt into blood were everywhere.
We caught a couple in a bottle and took them out to show our hosts. The hosts were gone, but the housekeeper shrugged it off. “Yeah, we have those,” was her nonchalant attitude. (And yet our host had accused us of getting rashes by petting cats!)
A few of our belongings survived several cycles of maximum-temperature washing and drying. You can imagine the reluctance with which we disposed of the rest of the things we had so carefully chosen to bring with us on our travels.
Why We LOVE Airbnb (and Still ALWAYS Use Them):
If you’re reading this, you’re probably here because you’re concerned about having a bad experience with Airbnb. (Or maybe you’ve already had one.)
I can’t promise what your experience will be like, but I can tell you that there’s one simple reason that we still always use Airbnb: they’ve taken care of us every single time.
How Airbnb Helped Us in Kolkata, India:
When we were dealing with mold, Airbnb encouraged us to get out of there immediately. They helped us search for a new place where we could stay right away, and ensured that we got a refund (which we hadn’t even requested, because we just wanted to get out of there even if it meant losing money).
How Airbnb Helped Us in Flores, Guatemala:
After my electric shock, Airbnb actually gave us more of a refund than we had requested (we had only asked for the future nights that we hadn’t stayed yet; they refunded us for the whole trip). Remember, this was after the host had initially refused to provide any refund at all.
They were eager to help us find another stay, but there was nothing nearby on Airbnb that could accommodate us since we needed two bedrooms on short notice, so we moved to a hotel instead. Airbnb could have just left it there and we would have been happy, but instead they also sent us a link to receive a free gift of our choice from a nice selection.
How Airbnb Helped Us in Marrakech, Morocco:
We sent Airbnb pictures of the bed bugs and our bites. They were so eager to help that they had actually set up a full solution before the host even responded.
Within an hour of sending Airbnb the pictures, I had worked with a support employee there to set up a (free!) three-night stay at an amazing, ultra-fancy riad that we never would have splurged on for ourselves.
A luxury poolside stay takes a lot of the sting out of a bed bug catastrophe!
Airbnb also covered the cost of the multiple maximum-heat laundry treatment cycles for our belongings.
Yes, it really sucked to need to throw away so many of our things, and to be covered in itchy bites. But it was a whole lot easier to forget about our problems while basking beside a luxurious pool after having enjoyed an incredible fresh breakfast.
In Summary:
We’ve stayed in Airbnbs for over two years total, across about 20 countries and four continents. In all of this time, we’ve had only three bad experiences with Airbnb. Every single time, I was amazed by how quickly I felt that Airbnb had our backs. I went into each situation mentally prepared to argue our case, but Airbnb immediately took care of us (with reasonable proof, of course, but that’s to be expected).
In one of the three cases, they did exactly as much as necessary to properly take care of us.
In the other two, Airbnb went above and beyond, giving us more than we had imagined or requested.
That’s why we still book with complete confidence. I know that even if something goes terribly wrong with our Airbnb stay, the company will take care of us and make sure everything is right.
I’m even more impressed with this level of service when I keep in mind that Airbnb itself isn’t responsible for the problems. It’s not like this is a hotel chain where the corporate level is in charge of ensuring things go well at each location. Instead, Airbnb is a victim too in its own way, with these problematic hosts lying about their offerings and deceiving Airbnb’s users. But Airbnb has never presented it to us that way; they’ve just taken quick and perfect care of us.
Sign Up Here for Free Credit!
If you’re sold on Airbnb by now (like we are!), use this link to sign up! You’ll get $40 off your first stay and $15 off your first experience, and we’ll also get a bit of Airbnb credit to use toward a future stay. :)