Airbnb bedbug problem

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Filippo12
Level 4
Durham, NC

Airbnb bedbug problem

While staying at a Airbnb rental in Ithaca, NY from June 19th 2016 to July 5th 2016 I started developing a severe skin rush on my face, neck, back, arms and legs. As you have seen from the pictures, my body that day became quickly covered with about 100 to 200 red spots that were painful and itchy. The red spots on my skin soon became blisters, forming a red liquid inside.

 

That same day I had to seek urgent medical attention. The doctor told me it was probably due to bedbugs, so I decided to do a visual inspection of the bed in the room where I was staying. By just removing the sheets from the bed in the room I immediately noticed the presence of several dozens of live Bedbugs and (as you can see from the pictures I took that same day of these insects and which I submitted to Airbnb) many of them were fully grown and developed adults.

 

As soon as I realised that my room was infested by bedbugs, I informed the host, who called a pest control company and I then contacted also Airbnb to inform them of the situation. In the following days, Airbnb cancelled my reservation and provided me with a new accommodation in Ithaca for the rest of my stay. I also had to sanitise all my clothes and personal belonging and get rid of several of my items which could not be sanitised in this process or which were too severely damaged by the bedbug infestation because I feared to spread the insects somewhere else.

 

On the insurance policies page, Airbnb says that it does not provide insurance coverage neither compensation for damage or injuries for bedbug infestation. Also, since Airbnb simply canceled my reservation, I was not able to leave any comment on the host or the rental, and I know for a fact that he is still renting rooms in his apartment.

 

I think those policies are unfair, since I was not allowed to receive compensation and I was not even able to comment on the host to let other people know about the risk in booking at this place. I think Airbnb should change this policy.

1 Best Answer
Kaylee18
Level 10
Hamilton, Canada

@Filippo12  You 100% have the right to leave a review since you stayed there. I would be talking to the higher ups at airbnb about that one. 

 

I had a guest stay who airbnb cancelled their reservation for breaking a house rule and they were still able to leave a review.

 

Sounds like someone messed up and took that option away from you. 

 

Good luck and hope your next airbnb experience is much better!

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68 Replies 68

Oh my, how awful.  I'm so sorry something so awful happened to you.  I am disappointed with the way Airbnb has handled this situation.  

 

Did Airbnb do anything for you besides re-book you somewhere else? 

No, and they also didn't payed the difference in rental. They simply canceled the first booking, refounded the ttotal ammount, and gave me that ammount for use to find something else to rebook.

By the way this is what happened to my hand:

Bedbugs' bites

Ankush1
Level 1
London, United Kingdom

Hi, I went to Zermatt with my wife and my wife had the same problem of Bugbites. She is in so muchg pain and her whole body has got blisters exactly as you picture. The host is not at ashamed and moreover airbnb they are still allowing the host to book the property, I wonder how can they play with health of people and their guests.

It's so frustrating to contact thgem and explaining the situation everytime, I have provided the pictures and videos still the host is saying there are no bedbugs (ridiculous).

We stayed for two days and they are saying we will refund you only for the night you are affected (really, what about the pain after bugbites). For sure we need to stop booking from this where guest health is not their priority or they take it casually.

Still fighting to get the full refund. Hopefully I get it.

Thanks

Wow, that's horrible. Did they end up refunding you in full, or just for the night that you were infected?

This happened to me. 200 bites over two nights in Cannes. AirBnB didn't refund us for the nights spent there. We were charged for the nights we were savaged by these little b£$%ards. 

 

Then they wouldn't let us rebook elsewhere with them as we were considered tainted. I was feverish and very sick and they left us to rebook accommodation elsewhere (passing on the 'problem') and they wouldn't book on our behalf as it would implicate them. Take about being abandoned. 

We were then left to find really expensive accommodation in Cannes in the middle of the 2nd busiest week of its year (outside the film festival).  Of course it cost us all a fortune, to which they offered 50 bucks a night towards it. That simply doesn't cover anywhere near it. 

 

I'm frankly appaled and won't be using them again. Their customer services sucks. And their attitude to people who are victims of these horrible contagious things is to dump you out and leave you to sort it all yourself.

 

 

Florian-and-Theresa0
Level 10
Mintraching, Germany

@Filippo12 I'm really sorry for what you've experienced. I never heard of this anti bed bug policy or where to find it. Can you give me the link to that page?

 

But maybe it's fine to still rent out the room if they got an pest control company.

The insurance policies apparently are not disclosed by Airbnb. I asked the Airbnb help center several times to see the host protection insurance policies but I never recived them. Airbnb uses a third party claim medietor company, and they too never sent me the policies. I looked for them online, but they are nowhere to be found.

 

Regarding the pest control, I am fine with that but I want to be able to comment on what happened to me. I think it is quite unfair that I was not able to say anything about this on the Airbnb comment section. I think that this is not a fair feedback system.

No, it is not ok - It is very hard to get rid of bed bugs and one visit by a pest control company does not fix the problem only put it a bit down for a while.

Sandra126
Level 10
Daylesford, Australia

As long as the listing has been treated, it would be fine to rent out. Insect infestations can certainly happen.

Your heading ''airbnb bedbug problem'' I feel is misleading, as it is not Airbnb who has the problem, simply a listing which will have been treated by now.

As with all insects bites, bedbugs bites are a serious health concern, and I do not think that this is something that should be taken lightly. I am postin here pictures of my hands and legs, so you can realize by yourself what I went trought:

BedbugsBedbugs' bites

I'm so sorry this has happened to you. It's both a guest's and a host's worst nightmare! I don't really understand though, if you know the host took immediate action and did not purposely rent you a room with bedbugs, why you would want to damage their livlihood by putting your experience on their page? Surely once the problem is fixed they are no more likely to have this problem reoccur than anyone else. And if you know they called professionals to fix the problem, what is there to warn future guests about?

Sound like a host that relates all too well to this type of problem who’s looking to escape own conscience.


@Lyndsey2 wrote:

I'm so sorry this has happened to you. It's both a guest's and a host's worst nightmare! I don't really understand though, if you know the host took immediate action and did not purposely rent you a room with bedbugs, why you would want to damage their livlihood by putting your experience on their page? Surely once the problem is fixed they are no more likely to have this problem reoccur than anyone else. And if you know they called professionals to fix the problem, what is there to warn future guests about?



I think people need to be a lot less judgemental about the hosts of AirBnB, where 99.9% of the Hosts offer up their home to strangers in good faith, who are also the likely cause of 99.9% of the bedbug infestations that the hosts of AirBnb get stuck footing the bill for, and then getting a crappy rating as well. It isn't fair. I know of friends who stayed at Hotels and came home with bedbugs after the fact and didn't get any compensation whatsoever. It's a risk both ways but favors the renter at the expense of the host alone. If a host has this issue, 99% chance it happened to them and they were unaware of the issue, until,...If a host follows all the rules, and remediates the issue, there should be zero chance that they should suffer in ratings or reputation. 

 

Perhaps a solution would be for a third party service to guarantee there is no infestion prior to renting. This will of course push the prices up, but it would be uniform across each and every AirBnB, as it would eventually become a requirement. 

 

This would absolve the Host, protect the Consumer and end everyones headaches as well as to spawn a new industry of Snap Bedbug Inspections for AirBnb hosts and Hotels. I think this is the next logical evolutionary step for AirBnb's and Hotels equally, as both have the same issues and both don't know really how to deal with it. 

Couchsurfing usets


@Phil206 wrote:

I think people need to be a lot less judgemental about the hosts of AirBnB, where 99.9% of the Hosts offer up their home to strangers in good faith, who are also the likely cause of 99.9% of the bedbug infestations that the hosts of AirBnb get stuck footing the bill for, and then getting a crappy rating as well. It isn't fair. I know of friends who stayed at Hotels and came home with bedbugs after the fact and didn't get any compensation whatsoever. It's a risk both ways but favors the renter at the expense of the host alone. If a host has this issue, 99% chance it happened to them and they were unaware of the issue, until,...If a host follows all the rules, and remediates the issue, there should be zero chance that they should suffer in ratings or reputation. 

 

Perhaps a solution would be for a third party service to guarantee there is no infestion prior to renting. This will of course push the prices up, but it would be uniform across each and every AirBnB, as it would eventually become a requirement. 

 

This would absolve the Host, protect the Consumer and end everyones headaches as well as to spawn a new industry of Snap Bedbug Inspections for AirBnb hosts and Hotels. I think this is the next logical evolutionary step for AirBnb's and Hotels equally, as both have the same issues and both don't know really how to deal with it. 



offer their home to strangers. Airbnb hosting is a small business / project that makes you a lot of money... There is a big difference. Host is responsible to make sure that his ENTIRE BUILDING is safe and free of bugs and of course the apartment itself !!!!

If the place is thoroughly cleaned everything time, you can see bed bugs. If you don't check for them as a host , your issue. 

Not a single guest should EVER suffer from this. 

 

I am allergic to their bites and if it happened to me I would have ended up in emergency with life threatening conditions. So yes host MUST MUST MUST make sure his place is CLEAN AND SAFE.