OH AND IT GETS BETTER!!!! Because our system has never been taxed like this before, sometime around 2am the A/C started cycling on and off in about 2 minute intervals. The unit is right outside our bedroom and we can hear it coming on and off, it woke us up. We quickly jump on the internet.... yup BROKEN! Either there is debris in the coils so they are not cooling properly or there is something else (sleep deprivation is making it impossible to recall what Jeff has told me). It was so loud that I could not go back to sleep and we didn't DARE turn off the house fan which, for some reason, was now running constantly. The temps crept up to 73 degrees over the next few hours and then at 5:23, the smoke detector in our room went off! WENT OFF! Ours have a temp sensor and since they had been unnaturally cooled to 70 for so many hours, the creeping temp caused it to go off. GREAT! Now I'm up - only a few hours of sleep. I've already refunded our guest 100% of their fee for the A/C failure and Alarm failure. But we have another guest arriving today. He's actually a wonderful repeat guest and this is going to suck rehousing him if we can't get the A/C started again today. On top of all that.... it's already over 80 outside today and it's not going to get any cooler - with the humidity it feels like 83 (or so Weather Underground tells me). And the next few days - in the 90s and rain - great conditions for no A/C, right?
Now I want to preface this situation with this.... a month ago a guest accused us of not providing A/C and wanted a full refund (he checked out after only a few hours). This was false of course, so we had to jump through all hoops, writing emails and providing pictures of the A/C vents in his room and bathroom plus the cold air returns, thermostat and unit outside. Airbnb denied his claim and this first time user pulled his profile. Then 2 weeks ago, another guest checked out after one night because it was "too hot". He never actually spoke to us about it, preferring to call Airbnb at 1am to discuss the temp with them. They chose to write us an email alerting us of the situation and we promptly lowered the temp for the guest. No need though, he had already booked a hotel and was checking out. And even though this was a guest cancellation, for some reason, Airbnb altered his reservation instead of cancelling it and for this "miscommunication and confusion" , they paid us for the ENTIRE stay. Of course, savvy hosts, this has resulted in a review being posted by this guest and, unfortunately, we were then forced to write a less-than-lovely review of him and his lack of communication. HIs response to our review is a beaut! And since he outright LIED in his review, now we're going through the hoops to have his review removed for violating the content policy. We had several guests since then, all comfortable and pleasant, until these two showed up today wanting the temps dropped from 76 to 70. We overcompensated for sure and now we are paying the price. We've lost the funds from tonight and will likely lose the funds for the next reservation along with the costs of bringing out a repairperson on a Sunday during some of the hottest days in Durham.
Great.... the smoke alarm just went off again in our room..... FML.
