Some friends and I stayed at an apartment in a beachy touristy area. We knew from the description that it wouldn't be luxurious which was fine as we are students trying to save money. However, the place was gross from the beginning. There was dirt all over the toilet. There was only one window. The dishes were dirty when we took them out of the cupboard and rewashed anything before we used it. The bathroom would flood, and sometimes into the hallway, whenever anyone would take a shower and the shower curtain had mold on it. It was so humid inside the apartment that when we did a load of laundry, they had not dried after 3 days! A few plugs fell out of the wall when we were attempted to plug things in. Then, on the last night, we found video cameras in the living room recording. We contacted AirBnB to find out if this had been disclosed to us (it had not) because we were under the impression that would only be allowed if we were notified upon booking. However, we stayed the whole time as these issues did not all happen right away. Also, everything else in the area was significantly more than what we had budgeted. It was so bad that when we realized that we made a mistake and our flight was one day after our reservation ended, we opted to stay in hotel rooms for the last night. Oh, I forgot to mention, the host kept asking us for a 200-300 euro "security deposit" (even though our reservation was paid in full) when we arrived that was only resolved with a phone call to AirBnB's customer service.
Before leaving, we washed all the dishes and stripped the beds that we had chosen to sleep in. We did not know where the specific dumpster was, so we grouped our trash together in bags to not get in trouble with the town (some cities have rules about which trash cans you use). Admittedly, there was some sand on the floor, but we could not find the broom. However, it was across the street from the beach, so we figured the host would have dealt with cleaning the sand before and it would be someowhat expected if you're managing a beach place.
He also sent aggressive messages to one of my group members through WhatsApp about the "disgusting" state of the place. When we saw our review, he claimed that we broke and hid his belongings which we did not. We did what I had done at every AirBnB I had stayed at previously and no one had issues with our clean-up. One of the people I went with has family members who run a few AirBnBs, and said our actions upon check out were what is expected and that when someone agrees to host they also agree to do a reasonable amount of cleaning. Is that incorrect?
This is only the second place I have stayed at under my name, so I only have two reviews "for me". I'm worried that future places will not rent to me due to this poor host. I contacted AirBnB but they will not mitigate the review. Help?
