Hello Superhosts, I am wondering if you can give me insight.
I am currently booked with a superhost in Sau Paulo names Luiz. For the past 5 years of using Airbnb I often stay with superhosts because of their excellent reputation and I have never had issues.
This experience was very different. My partner and I found out her dad is in the hospital in critical condition. I sent her to travel to him first while I ride up loose ends at home and plan on joining her later. Timing was such that she arrived on December 31 and was mostly at the hospital. Because it’s in the middle of a pandemic, the city was in lockdown over the holidays. Knowing this, we chose an Airbnb where they specified that the listing has all the essentials as well as a fully stocked kitchen where we could prepare meals. The listing stated they supplied all of these things, which were necessary since no restaurants were open.
when my partner arrived, there was no toilet paper, no soap, no hand towels, nothing to cook with (no hot pot, no kettle, no coffee maker). The “full” kitchen contained 2 forks, 2 dinner knives and 2 spoons and 1 frying pan. Not even any utensils to use in the frying pan.
we of course contacted the host who assured us he would be there soon with everything, saying it was in “another apartment”. It didn’t come for 4 days, and even then only parts of what was promised in the listing (coffee maker, 1 towel, 1 floor mat for the bathroom)
the listing also said that there was a queen bed and a sofa bed, which we specifically liked since we would likely have family stay with us overnight to see our father in the hospital, as they come from another city. we mentioned this to our host before the visit, that we would have both our mother and step mother likely visit during our minimum 1 month stay, and he confirmed that it was ok with him. When we arrived, we saw that the “sofa bed” was actually just a bench in the apartment. It was definitely false advertising.
we told the host we were not happy but we also wanted to make a win/win for both of us and said we could stay 7 days so that they wouldn’t be out $ and had time to find another guest for the remaining time. They agreed this was reasonable and that they would give us the refund for the remaining 23 days that we were not staying (since it was a 1month rental)
Coming up to the day of our intended departure we got a message from the host who said “I actually talked to the owner of the apartment and she said she won’t do the refund” we had assumed all this time that the host was the owner, plus he had said everything was fine, so were very shocked.
we asked to speak with the owner to reason with her and when we did she said that she “wasn’t a hotel” and told us to “buy toilet paper across the street at the grocery store, which also half frozen food for us to heat up in its package so we didn’t need kitchen utensils”. She was unwilling to agree to any refund and told us that Airbnb would have to deal with it.
After that, I sent the formal request for my refund via airbnb and explained about the inaccurate listing. We would have never chosen to stay in an empty apartment for one month in a city that was in lockdown and in which we did not have any relatives while we were busy attending our ailing family member. Based on the price we were paying as well as the listing description, we were deliberately misled into believing we were staying in a fully furnished apartment that would allow us immunities to be able to comfortably function. When we spoke to the host, they promised they would provide these things and move them over from their other apartment, but after 3 days it never showed up.
i was told that the best the case manager could do was give us a refund for 20 days, meaning we would have to stay for 10 days total and they did not waive any frees. There was no penalization for the complete break of trust in the inaccuracy of the listing, which I believe there should have been so as to protect future guests from not wasting their time, money and energy on this listing.
my question to all the superhosts is this: how would you have suggested this situation to have gone? Is it not airbnb policy that a listing have at least toilet paper supplied? Every other airbnb I have been to had soap, shampoo, toilet paper as well as things in the kitchen to use, including salt, sugar and pepper.
please help me-I’m currently on day 7 of my stay and am still trying to sort this out with the case manager.
thank you for your time
