Both host and airbnb refused partial refund after reporting bug infestation

[Sara7577]

I booked a 2 week stay till end of July in a private room attached to a house. When I checked in I saw that it was kind of a makeshift room where they used plastic walling to create an enclosed room, I didnt mind though, was totally fine, except I noticed a pretty big gap behind the dresser where I could see pipes and got slightly concerned about the lack of tight sealing causing it to have bugs, but brushed it off. First 2 days I was out almost all day so saw nothing but on night 3 of my stay I saw a small bug on the wall, it was a small roach looking bug but due to its size I didn't wanna make a fuss, so just killed it. Next day as I was getting ready and running late I saw another small bug and killed it as well, I made a note to bring this up with host when I came back, as I was in a hurry. A few hours later that night after coming back (around 12am) I saw the biggest roach I have ever seen in my life crawling on the wall. I am absolutely petrified of roaches and screamed at the top of my lung and scrambled around the tiny room trying to kill it as fast as possible with hairspray. Eventually it died and I as the panic subsided I took a photo of the dead roach and contacted the host immediately with the photo, the other bug issues and my hesitation to continue staying in the apartment. This apartment was more of a really small room that barely fits a full sized bed and a dresser and one minifridge, there was no food in the fridge, there is no kitchen or food anywhere so this isnt the case of lack of cleanliness, etc. It was 100% because there is no proper sealing making it easy for bugs to wander in especially since this was NYC and if you dont seal properly there will be bugs (and worse). I decided to pack and vacate the property and go stay with a friend for the night (this was 3am by then). The next morning I checked and the host had not answered me. I decided to wait a little bit since they might be sleeping (even though they had answered me previously at an earlier hour) eventually I decided to contact airbnb support with an official refund request around 12 hours since first contacting the host (who still didnt answer) I requested a partial refund for the remaining days I wont be staying (not the days I already stayed) and uploaded the picture of the roach and the resolution center issue showed that the host was contacted and had 1 hour to respond. They still did not respond and after the hour airbnb stepped in. 3 hours later my issue was marked as resolved even though I got no notification or even told what that "resolution" was. At that point the host had contacted me directly claiming that they never had this issue before and that I left the apartment "damaged" when I definitely did not, and that she wont give me a refund. I called their customer support and was told I was not covered by airbnb because I reported this after 72 hours from check in, I went on their website and saw that the policy says I need to report 72 hours since DISCOVERING ISSUE not check in, I tried to explain that but they were adamant that they cant do anything except contact host to give me a refund. Obviously when they did the host said no, which I had already told them had happened. They then basically told me they can't do anything for me...

I have no idea what my options are here, technically my stay is still ongoing on the app and there are 11 nights left. I dont feel comfortable going back, as I have a severe phobia of roaches and the thought of having open luggage or sleeping in a roach infested tiny room with no escape is truly traumatic for me. The host has stopped responding to me at this point and I cant stay with my friend for more than one more night... I have literally no where to go unless I get another hotel/airbnb but I already paid $1500, I dont want to pay again! I dont understand how airbnb can't help me with this? I dont know what my options are here and what to do?

Any help appreciated.

Thanks!

[Emiel1]

@Sara7577 

You need to follow these procedures:

https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/248/if-something-goes-wrong-during-your-stay

Airbnb CS must take it more seriously.

Also the host and/or listing can be reported to Airbnb.

Alternatively you can ask the host to shorten the reservation ("change" option) and refund unused  nights by altering also the automatically calculated price in the change form (If you "change" the reservation yourself, the attached cancellation policy will apply)

[Sara7577]

Yes, these are exactly the procedures I followed, and even referenced that same link to customer support to show that it says that it is 72 hours from discovery of issue not from check in... but they didn't care... I mean I don't know what you mean by persistent... everytime I call I get the same guy and he tells me the same thing, maybe its because he is tied to my account phone number now? 

[Huma0]

@Sara7577 

Sorry to hear about your experience. I absolutely would not sleep in a room with roaches either.

Airbnb customer services is really hit and miss because they laid off a lot of their trained staff due to COVID and have replaced them with outsourced staff who don't really understand the policies. It's weird that you keep getting through to the same guy though. I've never experienced that before when calling them...

I have heard that some people have more luck getting a response from Airbnb when they use social media. So, post on Airbnb's Twitter and Facebook accounts. 

Regardless of the roaches, this listing sounds pretty grim to me. Was it not visible in the listing photos that the room was just 'walled' off with plastic sheeting? Was this mentioned in the description? 

[Sara7577]

After multiple attempts and escalations with two different managers where they both gave conflicting reasons to why they cant help me, I decided that airbnb support is just awful and don't even know their own policies, despite my attempt to highlight them from their own website multiple times. So decided to call my CC issuer and told them what happened and they absolutely recommended I file a dispute. They said that they consider a merchant not refunding based on their own refund policy is grounds to get my money back and that I should gather as much evidence as I can in case they request it. So I went ahead and did that and we shall see over the next few weeks what happens.

[Sara7577]

Two things the bank's agent (actual good customer service) highlighted about their refusal of my refund request: 

1. The 72-hour from check in vs from discovery issue, she said that one was very clear cut as it is just 100% agent being misinformed, so that was an easy thing to prove. 

2. Whether the issue itself was covered by airbnb. Airbnb support claims it is not enough of an issue to warrant a refund but their website says under "Issues Covered" that pests are covered as a refundable reason. The bank agent told me that although it seems that this might be clear cut as well, airbnb might try to argue that they meant a pest infestation and although I believe there was I only provided two images as "evidence" because I unfortunately didnt think to take pictures of the earlier bugs I killed since I didn't expect this escalation to happen. In my mind though the airbnb policy states "There are pests" thats it, it didn't say "there is a pest infestation", so seems to me its not as open to interpretation as they might make it seem.

[Jane3793]

Hi Sara, did this case resolved? Did you get the partial refund? Similar issue happened to me as well and the host is refusing to give the refund, saying it is not reliable because I don't have any proofs... so stressed at the moment.