Hi everyone,
I am a guest in a horrific situation and hoping to get some help from the community.
So I booked a month-long stay with a host whose listing was new and at a great price. I was coming from a disaster of an Airbnb with a lady who had had a hidden camera in the house among other problems, and so I found this lovely stay in the mountains and I was looking forward to being here. The problems started small - the address was missing, wifi details weren't there, certain appliances weren't plugged in, and the TV wasn't turning on for the longest time until it turned out that it wasn't plugged in either. Then I turned it on, only to find out that there were parental controls on it, so that took time to resolve (these people literally didn't even check their own listing to ensure that it was ready). These were relatively minor and so I let it go.
Everything was good after that until 9 days in, the cleaning lady knocks on my door because she's cleaning the unit upstairs and the host didn't give her a key (and I found out from her that they actually expected her to get it from me, and not issue her one at all, and didn't even tell her WHICH key it was, so she had to come back 2 more times because she tried the wrong key). Later that day, a family suddenly moves into the unit upstairs (and the host did not notify me ahead of time as is proper, neither did they notify this family that I was there). So the man goes downstairs and walks all over my "private" patio, by accident, and discovered me there, because they didn't tell him anything. He apologizes, we are friendly, and then he goes upstairs, and all was momentarily okay until it turns out that the walls have ZERO insulation, at all, and I can hear every single footstep, noise, voice, and sound as if I am up there. And there are two kids. And they go for literal hours and disrupt my sleep the next morning. Thankfully, they left the next day.
I tell the host right away and I threaten to leave, and so she calls me the next day and offers to have me take over the upstairs unit. She seems really nice and I don't sense anything malicious, so I agree to work it out with her. She is afraid of getting in trouble with Airbnb, since she has gotten trouble for other things before, apparently, so we do it "off the books" and I cancel my reservation and she closes out booking for the upstairs unit. She seemed nice and I trusted her (I am not a naive person and have a good sense of people, and in this case I didn't sense anything off), so I relinquished the money - which was a mistake, because now I forfeited any chance to get help with Airbnb, and that same day that I was to move upstairs, she literally sends her cleaner in randomly without notifying me the entire day or checking in on me, leading to me forcefully haul all of my things out without warning while she waits for me. The cleaning lady felt bad and told me she was not told much from the host, just that they needed her to go and clean ASAP.
At that point I am furious, and I talk to them again, telling them how awful their communication is, how I've been thoroughly screwed over, and if one more thing happens - no matter what - I am leaving and I am posting bad reviews. This time, the host isn't so kind and tries to passively foist blame on me, saying "checkout time is normally 10 AM" (they had messed up here and had made up for it by letting me go upstairs on my own time and also didn't specify at all if/when they wanted me out), "it's not normal for us to tell you when someone is coming" (it's an actual Airbnb policy), "we're just easygoing people" (not if you're passively trying to blame me), etc. At that point, I am trapped, because everywhere is very overpriced due to it being summer, and I cannot contact Airbnb anymore since I forfeited the money.
The problems continued. The upstairs unit TV had problems with plugs and parental controls as well. When I used the shower, it gave my eyes a reaction. Finally, it culminated in me finding not 5, not 7, but 12 GIANT moths all over the house one night, in every room, flying everywhere and then following me into the bedroom.
At that point I decided "**bleep** it, I am leaving, even if I am overpaying", and I figured I could try to get some money back from the bank or customer service for the duration of my stay (a couple of weeks left). I literally spent $2100 across a few weeks (for the duration of the original reservation dates that I now had to book somewhere else), plus this loss of $1720 for this awful reservation, and when I tried to report the situation to Airbnb, all they did was "ask" her if she wanted to refund me, and of course the answer was no (obviously, what horrible host is going to say "sure, I messed up! Take your money back") and then told me that because I passed the 72 hours, they could do nothing (also bull**bleep** because I have reported bad things like this within the timeframe and they'll literally just ask the host if they want to refund and then call it a day). My bank told me they could do nothing because Airbnb refused.
And finally, the host had both a policy in her listing, two written agreements, and an oral one, to refund me minimum $350 for a security deposit included in payment upon completion of the stay. I showed Airbnb this and my mountain of evidence, and yet because she said no now to even THAT, they refused to uphold it. After multiple times saying yes, she took advantage of this opportunity to say no and used it.
And I had TONS of tangible evidence to show them about this stay - photos, videos, conversations. Nobody cared.
The cherry on top of all of this was my review that I posted detailing what happened to me was taken down for being "retaliatory" (this was prior to my even reporting her and had no empty insults or anything except I called her incompetent once in the entire review) and they refused to budge on that.
Subsequent attempts to contact the host or appeal to customer service at both Airbnb were completely ignored or disregarded.
This host was completely malicious and took advantage of the cancellation, treated me like dirt, refused to work with me, blamed me, used Airbnb's favoritism to enact bad faith and unethical behavior, dishonesty, deceit, stole my money, provided a horrible stay and kept me trapped there with my loss, and is now just walking away scot-free.
I don't know what to do. I am in my 20s and every penny counts, and this was a massive loss of almost $4,000. All I wanted was a peaceful stay after some rough times, and I was completely beaten up instead. I treated her kindly and tried to be understanding and I have a lot of positive host reviews that prove my conduct, yet it didn't matter. She lacks ethics or morals and did not care and her listings are still up and continuing to make money and reviews.
I am considering suing or emailing an Airbnb higher up, but I am open to feedback and ideas from you guys. If anyone has a class-action lawsuit, please let me know, too.
Please be kind and at least civil, this has been a rough experience for me and I assure you I have thought over everything and did the best I could.
Thank you.
Note: this listing and stay took place in California.
