I have been using AirBnb for years now, own 2 accounts and have never had big issues with hosts.
Until lately in December when in Mexico I rented a property for 1 month in Chiapas and got... well screwed.
My rule of renting and long-term rental is to make sure that internet works well, since I work from my laptop.
Me and my wife also ask 1000's of questions, hot water, heating. etc, because in past we had not so ideal experiences.
Well... Let me share my mis-adventure in Chiapas (wonderful region).
This is a copy of the text i wrote to Airbnb after my case was 'solved' by cancellation policy with 100% loss of money (on my side)
Why? The host told Airbnb that he had solved the issues the next days... Nothing more far from the truth.
READ ON.
When we arrived the first day the problems started.
Nobody was there on the property to welcome us as planned (we messaged many times before).
R***** ,the assistant of L**** should have been there but was at a celebration in his town, drinking alcohol.
L**** came after we were there in the middle of nowhere for 45 minutes but he had no keys!
So he invited us in his home, he drove us there. About 3 hours later, R***** came, drunk. We stay a bit in the house and as soon as they left, we saw that internet was very bad, 0.15 MB upload.
We clearly said that we needed it for our work and need a medium speed connection.
Also before we came, we clearly ask if there was wood for the fire, but nothing when we arrived. We got it in the night, but at super high price and very small wood, burning very fast and then costing a lot of money.
Then there was no entry door, a house with no entry door means anyone could enter in your kitchen bathroom (only bedrooms had lock) !! but should have been built the next morning (irony off)
In the night, there was No warm water, and it was about 10 degrees in the house. The fire could not reach the rooms and even with no entry door, the house could not heat itselt, being very badly isolated (its like warming your house with a open window).
In the next morning, I took a short shower, with warm water, but it ended up there in 2-3 minutes. My wife could not take a shower as the water was back to cold!
Then we went down in the kitchen and saw that water from shower was leaking on the the cooking stove (gas). I have picture of this.
The internet got on and off and connection very low. Way too low to do any work.
We left the house around 12am and then we called L*****.
He said that he will try to solve the problems but after he called back and said that he could not reach R***** by phone as he was again a festivity day. And R***** was not answering. So nothing could be solved for our second day.
He later invited us in another place of him but we just had booked another hotel as we needed to work, a warm shower. We came quick;y back to house to pick our luggages. It was about 5pm
As so may promised failed before, we could not believe that the problems would be solved the next day.
First nobody to welcome us and loosing half a day, then no entry door! then slow internet connection (there is only an antenna quite weak for 6 house, so internet is divided in between all people which, when new renters would have come would have compromised even more our connection). We work from internet and cannot loose more than 2 days of work, im sure you understand. Specially we asked it clearly to L**** before our arrival.
On the day of the arrival, I had to climb after L**** try to show us the house but had no key. In fact there was no need to climb as the house was on the ground floor on another side. It was a dangerous thing being almost 4 m high!! That is explaining that L*** does not know those properties enough to be a reliable person. R***** prefered to drink and make fiesta instead of welcoming us
We had many airbnb experiences, nothing like this and worse of all AIRBNB sided with the host withouth contacting us and enquiring about the situation.
On the phone when we had contacted Airbnb to explain the issues, they sided on our side, they told us to make sure to contact Luis and try to resolve, we did and as you can read from above... nothing could be solved in 24 hours.
Now imagin i would have been on a 7 days tour maybe honeymoon , 2 days would have been screwed totally because of this poor managment and conditions.
I find it quite unacceptable that Airbnb does not screen its property ON THE GROUND, meaning there should be quality manager in place to check if the listing is really up to the description.
I have so far lost 1 month of booking (money!), my valuable time and earned some headaches.
What am i left to do at this point?
Re-escalate the whole thing??
Thanks for your help.
