5 Star Reviews Yet No Hot Water, Dirty Dishes, Ants, Noisy Neighbors?

[Karen457]

After many great Airbnb experiences, I seem to be running into a bad streak of luck, but it's made me wonder if guests are just afraid to leave a poor review for fear of looking like a complainer and not being able to book a stay? After a recent nightmare experience that I wrote about here previously - multiple problems, including dangerous situations that were left without anything being done other than promises for weeks - I was re-housed by Airbnb for the last 8 days of my stay. I carefully read through every review (35 of them), all were positive and felt comfortable going there. While it isn't near as bad as the last there are some major issues that no one has mentioned leading me to believe they're worried about doing so, or maybe I'm just expecting too much? I don't think so, but I'd love to hear other's thoughts on this.

I'm definitely not going to leave another bad review because it will surely make me look like a complainer, but this place has no hot water. I told the host and he said something about the batteries needing to replaced in the hot water heater - it's a small box on the outside of a house wall , this is in Baja, Mexico. He said they hadn't replaced them because it's been so hot. The weather is changing and while it is still warm (not nearly as hot), taking a cold shower isn't fun and it's impossible to really get the dishes clean, probably the reason there were so many dirty dishes in the cabinet, with food dried on them. There are ants all over the kitchen, and the next door neighbors are really loud, blast music frequently and have a little dog that's left outside day and night barking constantly (that I know the owner can't control, but surprising no one has mentioned it). The listing also said it includes a washing machine, but it's broken- obviously really old and rusted so likely for some time.

Any thoughts on this? Thankfully we only have a few days left so I'm just dealing with it in the meantime but after this and the last place I really don't know if I can trust booking another Airbnb in the future.

[Karen457]

@Sarah977 The roosters can be the worst!! A long time ago I did some voluteer work on a farm in Washington State and their rooster got going at 3:30 a.m., it was awful.That is a really funny story, I had no idea they believed that.  I'd like to get chickens at some point, but definitely no rooster. 😉 

[Letti0]

@Sarah977  If the egg floats in a cup/bowl of cold water don't eat it, if it sinks eat it. This is the way I was told to tell if an egg is good or bad from early childhood. It's worked out fine for me. Eggs actually last a long time, but all the warnings tell people they don't, so they throw them out and replace. My one daughter recently wanted to make cookies and the carton said the eggs expired on XX date. She had just got back to her apartment after summer a 9  week deal (She's in college). She floated them and all sunk, they were fine major weeks out of date on the carton. No one got sick and the cookies were good.

[Sarah977]

@Letti0   Yes, eggs are actually fine unrefrigerated for about 3 months. As long as there's no cracks in the shell, they're sealed units- there's nowhere for bacteria to enter. I learned this when staying in Barbados once. The host raised chickens for eggs which she sold to all the local hotels. The eggs were all in flats on the extensive kitchen counters, marked with the date she had collected them. In the US and Canada, people are crazy about expiry dates and refrigerating things that don't require it. I have a friend who took the Foodsafe course because it's required of anyone who works with food and the public in Canada. If a pot of rice sits out on the stove for more than an hour after it's cooked, she'll throw it in the garbage, because it's supposedly unsafe. I've been eating cooked rice left out overnight all my life and it's never made me sick.

And a nurse friend told me that medications are not at all unsafe to take after their expiry dates- they just might not be as strong if they're older. Expiry dates on everything are far in advance of when it might be likely to go bad, to cover the company's a**es.

The thing about the fertilized eggs here- it's a macho society, so if there's not a rooster involved, they couldn't be good 🙂

[Sandra126]

@Sarah977, brilliant rooster story. I will relish it and use it. Another tip about eggs: If you store them in cartons and turn the carton over, you will prolong the life of the eggs. As the egg ages, the yolk travels (you know when you eat a boiled egg and the yolk is right near the shell that it has been stored for a while). So by turning the carton you keep the yolk where it belongs, in the centre!

[Kelly149]

this is kind of a problem that ABB has created.

How many of us would be just fine with a 3* space if it was located where we wanted for a price we liked? BUT ABB has decided that it's all 5* or nothing.

I've stayed in 2 ABBs, both with SH, both with great 5* ratings. Neither one was great, neither was anything I wanted to return to, one I even had some safety concerns (oooooold building) but both got a "friendly host" and 5* review from me bc I wasn't going to be the one to tank them in ABBs rating system.

ABB thinks that all these 5* listings make them look good, but really we all start to realize that it's all a sham. Many of my 5* guests haven't been great and there are probably lots and lots of 5* listings that aren't terrible but aren't great either.

@Karen0 write the review that you think you should considering all the context, don't stress about it.

we can all hope that someday abb gets more sensible about the review system.

[Cormac0]

@Karen

What was your motivation for picking this spot? was it exceptionally cheap or did the photos show an entirely different aspect to the property, I find it incredulous that the previous twenty-five guests thought it was a five-star property.

We're all heard now, of the nonsense call "Fake News" now we appear to have a new incarnation, but equally nonsensical notion called "Fake reviews"

No Karen I don't believe for a minute that twenty-five guests in a row, wrote five-star reviews and that they were all fabricated.

It sounds like to me that the property you booked is not the property you stayed in, however inconceivable that maybe.

Airbnb has become the inflexion point at which expectation and epiphany converge.

[Karen457]

@Cormac0  It was not exceptionally cheap, I didn't choose one that had the highest rate but there were many at a lower rate, it is slightly above average for the area. I chose it based on the previous reviews that it in was a quiet neighborhood not far from the Malecon/waterfront area and that everything was clean, comfortable and in working order, and from the photos.

Is it possible that the host had these previous reviews from a different property? I wouldn't think that would be possible The photos do depict this home but they are well chosen, and of course don't show the broken washing machine, dirty dishes, etc. or how close the neighbors are and what a busy street it's on, or that there is no hot water. 

[Steven65]

Maybe, to overcome this, and I play devils advocate. Guest and host ratings are anonymous. We only see the total rating for each guest and each host; but dont access the individual ratings supplied by each person. This would promote a more honest review.