Hi Helen,
We didn't find out about the problem until the fourth day. We arrived close to midnight on the first day. Attending my kiddo's college graduation took all day on the second day - we ate out and didn't buy food.
On the third day we bought food and put in fridge - starting to realize something was wrong but tried adjusting temp gauges to make sure it wasn't us, and put bottle of water in freezer to test (no manuals anywhere for fridge, other appliances, cooling system or any other documentation - we looked).
Fourth day were out of the city on a tour all day. Came back evening to find unfrozen water, just barely cool. Realized there really was something wrong. Ate out because we didn't trust that the groceries we'd bought would be good Contacted host that night who asked for photos and videos which we provided early next morning day five (kind of hard to video a non-working fridge, haha).
Day 5 midday we were at a picnic in the boonies and mid-afternoon host messaged me via AirBNB twice and asked if we could let in the maint people - I didn't get her message for several hours (spotty cell service out in the sticks) but when received replied with permission for them to enter without us being there. She replied thanks. We brought back lots of leftovers thinking the maint people would have been in and fixed the fridge. But they didn't actually come until after we returned in evening, after 6pm. The maint guy then scoped it out, and agreed there was a problem with fridge, freezer, stove hood and dishwasher - said he would have his boss call me, which didn't happen. We were more than halfway through our stay, and truthfully I had thought it would be fixed. But later that night I had to message the host again for an update because I never heard back from anyone, she replied to say that the maint people needed to return again the next day to evaluate what parts to get. I said they were welcome to enter without us there. We spent time that night searching for ice to keep things cold but unfamiliar with where to buy in MTL (note: a depanneur!). I emailed host that we hadn't been able to find ice and she didn't respond. A city native, maybe she could have pointed us in the right direction? Radio silence. At this point I had alerted AirBNB Support to the issue, and then re-provided all the documentation, and also got a 3am call from them making sure we were ok. Yikes!
Next day (Day 6) i messaged the host again asking for update and she said the maint people couldn't fix anything, so her company was ordering a brand new refrigerator, dishwasher and hood for the unit, and that they would be installed in three to five days. Note - this would be after we had left, which she must have known. She said 'sorry for the inconvenience' again. And that was it.
AirBNB did give me a 30% refund, but wouldn't permit a refund for spoiled gourmet picnic food which we had to toss out. I did have complete receipts. Oh well. On our last night I finally found out where to buy ice and we had cold water for the first time all week, which was great because it was hot and muggy!
Oh, and to top it all off, on the last night my cousin found a kissing bug aka assassin bug on her bedroom curtain - she's a professional entomologist. Kissing bugs are nasty creatures that look like cockroaches but are much worse, and leave very painful bites (she knew from experience). Neither of us got bitten thankfully and we didn't see any others. But yuck. I emailed the host a photo of the bug and unsurprisingly got no reply.
Next time I won't wait and assume it's something we don't understand, and instead will ask to be moved. I didn't know that was a thing. Actually, will probably stick to a hotel next time, even though I've stayed in mostly excellent AirBNBs run by lovely, customer-oriented people. But wow.
Thank you for listening!
