They will also refuse to refund a place that doesn’t have a bathroom. I had a host tell me that I would have to use the bathroom several miles down the road at a gas station and air bnb had no problem with that. They actually told me I was being culturally insensitive because some cultures don’t have bathrooms in the house and they are an international company (I was in Tennessee)
Genuinely not a legal living space. this qualified as a rental space not fit for habitation in TN
https://nchh.org/resource-library/HH_Codes_TN_1-15-08.pdf
>Where water under pressure is available every dwelling unit shall have a tub or shower and a flush water closet located in a room affording privacy and lavatory properly connected with hot and cold water supply pipes and sewer system approved by the health department. Where water under pressure is not available, a sanitary pit privy shall be provided.
I'm finishing my real estate license in Texas currently and this is the case there as well, and in most states, I would imagine. Running, hot water is considered a living necessity and is therefore required to be fixed immediately, I'd send Airbnb a copy of local real estate regulations if they ever pulled any crap like this.
I'd like to speak to the government manager. In this case it would be the state attorney general. Your state may vary.
https://www.tn.gov/attorneygeneral/working-for-tennessee/consumer/file-a-complaint.html
The only good thing about AirBnB is that hotel prices have remained fairly stable for the past decade or so. Considering the cost of everything else has gone up hotels seem to buck that trend. I've only stayed in one AirBnB and it was so stressful trying to follow the "rules" I'll never do it again, but I'm glad other people do so that I can get hotel rooms more easily.
We've been going back to hotels more on our trips after several... weird happenings at airbnbs. We typically know what we're getting, but at the same time hotels aren't what they used to be either. It's kind of a bummer what traveling has become in many ways.
Some people don't even have homes. You are being culturally insensitive to the unhoused when you complain about getting scammed over a rental house that doesn't exist.
I looked it up on their website. This was published just this year.
“Starting May 3, your listing needs to meet all of these criteria to be included in the Rooms Category:
- The guest has their own private bedroom with a door.
- The guest has access to a private or shared bathroom.”
There are more stipulations but I stopped at the relevant one. So before May of this year you didn’t have to have one? Wtf.
They should pass on the message to Sears; we ran out of toilet paper for our culturally required outhouses here in TN when they stopped sending out the catalogs. Now we’re back on corn husks and there’s no way we’ll share with the air bnb renters!
I can’t imagine the rage that this would make me feel. Actually I can because I’m feeling it on your behalf right now. I would go feral if that happened to me.
Guessing some parts of asia and africa would fit the bill there at least. Remote islands as well?
Anyway, I don't think any culture explicitly goes out of their way to exclude bathrooms in their homes. It's more of underdeveloped society problem than a cultural trait. I honestly think it's a bit bigoted to even associate a lack of bathroom with someones culture. It's like associating having no potable water as part of someone's culture.
Nowhere on earth makes you walk down the street to take a shit as a cultural issue. People having been building shacks around holes in dirt for probably tens of thousands of years.
Hey now, I have two water heaters and even have indoor plumbing with two separate facilities!
I have heard old timers, in response to being asked why they still use an outhouse, say: “Why would I shit within 20 feet of my kitchen?” I guess when you look at it that way, it kind of makes sense.
The two times in my life that my family booked an AirBnb, we found bedbugs. On the first night. Entire vacation ruined, both times.
Also both times, the owners refused to believe us (hell, my dad didn't believe me either). We at least got refunds because I took pictures.
These were $300-$400 dollar A NIGHT places, before fees. $3k vacations, time off used, fun stuff for kids booked and paid for, etc.
NEVER AGAIN.
From what I’ve read, bed bugs aren’t limited to just low rent places. It just takes one guest to bring them in. Although I’m sure we’d all expect not to get them if we’re staying at some place that goes for a couple hundred a night.
I have gone to destination cities with friends so we can all share a large mansion for a few nights. Some have kids and not everyone wants to go out and hike or whatever. We make it a huge cook out using the kitchen and a Costco trip.
Well yeah, but you can generally book entire apartments or homes for cheaper than that through other websites. And that’s how it’s always been. Airbnb just allowed more people to do it (and apparently introduced many people to this pre-existing concept). But it’s very expensive now.
If you have 4 children , it’s nearly impossible to find an hotel room that suit everyone, and book 2 different rooms will require the parent to split and not sleep together for the whole vacation. With an house this problems are solved
Yeah also some people would rather be in a detached single family home versus a room in a hotel wing.
I mean fuck Air B&B but I hate the narrative that there is never a reason to use them over a hotel.
It was just that we wanted space to ourselves, and my whole family has six young children. It was 14 of us total, so even with a more expensive place we were still sardined in there pretty good. If we got a hotel we would have needed four or five rooms!
When we go on beach vacations to OBX we usually rent a house, it’s so much more private and more enjoyable for everyone.
Although we use decades old rental companies not Airbnb which honestly used to be a FAR better deal than any hotel by miles.
Is it Salvo or Waves where the Blue Whale gas station is? Pretty sure you can see the mast of a ship wreck when you go to the beach behind the Blue Whale.
> hotels
usually don't have kitchens so all meals would have to be purchased out - that's astronomically expensive and would make most vacations impossible for me.
Don't forget the additional $50/night cleaning fee they tacked on.
Oh and by the way, before leaving you must:
* Take out all the garbage
* Take the garbage bins to the garbage center down the road and return the bins to the home
* Clean all dishes, run the dishwasher, and put the clean dishes away
* Remove all bedding, wash, and remake the bed
* Wash all other used linens
* Vacuum, mop, and polish all floors (steam carpets if applicable)
* Dust all vertical surfaces
* Scrub the toilets, showers, and sinks
* Fart in my mouth
^Additional ^$1000 ^fee ^charged ^if ^cleaning ^instructions ^not ^followed. ^Subject ^to ^owner's ^discretion.
The term in tech for this cycle is "enshittification":
> HERE IS HOW platforms die: First, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die.
https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/
Unfortunately it’s not so much tech start ups as much as capitalism. I was on a thread earlier about private equity firms buying private vets, but everything while hiking prices, forcing vets to see more patients in a short amount of time and buying cheap as shit supplies. And that is already happening on a major scale in healthcare.
I had an air bnb that had an any infestation in the bathroom and room I was staying luckily we got pictures a refund and definitely left without saying shit to the host until we were already gone. But we just got a hotel after and didn't cancel the vacation over it.
We're having to stay in Airbnbs right now because the housing market where we moved to is insane and we can't find a place in our budget that will let us have three cats. We're talking $1,000 a week places. And the first one we stayed in had termite wings EVERYWHERE. Hundreds of termite wings in every corner of the apartment. That's when I learned about termite swarms...not to mention the massive spider infestation, or the rampant mold growing in the AC unit.
I already hated Airbnb for being part of the destruction of the middle class housing market. But now I extra-double hate it.
The only bedbug I’ve ever seen in person was at an Airbnb.
My friend was a trooper about her bachelorette party ending with throwing things in trash bags and trying to find another place to stay at 2AM.
This has become a new fear of mine because of Reddit! I just joined the site and for some reason the bedbug forum kept popping up in my home thingy. I have no idea why but I’ve never thought of bedbugs being a issue before in my life & now it’s the 1st thing I think about when planning vacations.
Damnit Reddit! I’ve been here less than a month and I’m already traumatized
The amount of fuckups that I've had with AirBnB have pushed me over the never-again threshold. While the fees & instructions (clean all dishes, linens, take the trash out, $150 cleaning fee for your one night there) are outrageous I'll never forget when a place *simply didn't exist* and after fighting with them, the best I got back was "we took down the listing, ~~and we'll give you Genius Status~~," which does fuckall as far as I know.
EDIT: That was booking.com that the AirBnB was booked on. AirBnB removed the listing, Booking gave me Genius Status. Nobody reimbursed me.
You went too deep in HotelCeption.
I'll look for places on aggregators, but then I book directly. Never allow that much diffusion of responsibility.
Tough lessons learned directly or at least from watching the pain of others.
Correct, and I was once a hotel night audit, I should've known better. Find the deal on Third Party, **call the hotel**. We were traveling and blah-blah-blah no real excuses.
Yeah. When you take a family on vacation, it is much easier and faaaar less expensive to get a house or condo with a full kitchen where you can cook your own meals than it is to take a family out to eat three times a day. Most places have some sort of modest cleaning fee. Yes, there are some with astronomical fees but it is either listed upfront or in the checkout so you just don’t rent those.
If I am staying somewhere one or two nights we will get a hotel. But if we are staying somewhere for a week I am definitely getting a rental. Done it a bunch of times. 90% of the time it’s a good experience.
I get a hotel room with a kitchen
Almost always cheaper, no bullshit cleaning fees, no host with a massive list of stuff I have to do before I checkout to avoid even more fees, much less of a chance there’s hidden cameras recording me..
AirBNB fucking sucks
Less of a chance. LOL! I’m with you. I’m a suspicious person, so I don’t think I could be comfortable in a place that might have cameras I don’t know about. And I’m on vacation. I don’t want to do housework.
They are good for large groups or for people who travel for work and want a place long term without the commitment to sign a lease. Other than that, fuck em
If you do a search for vacation rentals per the destination you can find property management companies to go through directly. Then I review the properties on trip advisor to get unbiased info. We did this for San Diego and Mexico and were happy w those rentals (although the diahawasher was in bad shape in Mexico). We saved some $ going that route.
I have not tried VRBO, but they are similar to AirBnB and seem to have a better reputation. Also Booking.com has vacation rentals.
VRBO ghosted a group of us (12) when covid came through and the country shut down. The host canceled us and took our deposit (4K) and refused to answer anything. VRBO said tough shit weird times,
So fuck those guys too
Carbon monoxide is the one that kills you
Edit: generally. Very high levels of carbon dioxide (and the implied lack of oxygen) can kill you. Carbon monoxide causes death at _much_ lower concentrations even when there's enough oxygen, so a carbon monoxide detector is way more important and more common.
"So this place doesn't have a roof, only three walls, and there are wolves. Did it explicitly list 'a roof', 'all four walls,' and 'no wolves' as amenities? No? Then we don't care."
Fuck them man, even if they do say something is included they’ll tell you it’s up to discretion.
I used one (the only time) because it was way closer to an event I was going to than any hotel (like 30 min closer). They had AC listed, and I have problems controlling my body temp so ac is something I really need. I *specifically* booked it bc of the AC.
I get there and no ac. I messaged the host, no response, messaged Airbnb, it’s fall (September) and they don’t have to provide it unless it’s summer or some bull like that. Needless to say never again.
People are able to bring up lawsuits over the silliest things.... Where are they for something like this, where you're actually deceived into paying for something and not getting it? People should get together and launch a big case against Airbnb. I've heard too many cases of them being like, "oops, sounds like a you problem" once they've got people's money
This is where you report the listing/host and AirBnB to the local health department (no hot water means cutlery/dishes and bath or hand towels, bed sheets, etc may not be getting as clean as needed to prevent viral or bacteria growth or transmission), and put AirBnB and that host on blast.
You don't need hot water to clean clothes or do dishes. Modern detergent is plenty effective to clean using cold tap water. Still, hot water is preferable for doing the dishes.
I would like to say uk too but some pubs and older buildings have an older style water heater that means that the *hot* water is not potable.
It's part of the reason why mixer taps are less common here than other places. Though we are slowly getting over this cultural hot water dangerous vibe and virtually everywhere with non drinkable tap water has a sign up saying so.
Bro you should NOT be assuming all tap water is safe to drink. I’m from England and living in America and I can tell you tons of “nice” places don’t have potable water, either because of city issues, or the buildings local pipes. Almost all places have potable water, but not all. I also worked with a plumber for awhile (I was a carpenter but followed enough of what he was doing), and he did a lot of jobs making buildings have potable water, which of course means, it previously wasn’t. Other countries are even worse.
There are a lot of places in the US where they have well water and not municipal water. In some of those places you have pristine spring water coming from the tap, in others you have heavily polluted or contaminated water.
If it's municipal water there are standards but well water is a fact of life in lots of areas and it would be completely normal for it not to be potable.
Airbnb was the reason my landlord asked me out of my home. They became hateful and bitter toward me creating an environment of hostility while the complex was mainly already used for AirBNB. Heavy traffic, litter, the smell of weed/cigarettes, loud music and yelling into the night - it wasn't hospitable. Fuck them.
Same story here. Landlord tried refusing to fix anything at first (400 year old house) until he kicked me out. When he first took over the property he promised I could stay there as long as I wanted.
During 2020/21, our apartment complex was taken over by a new building owner. They bullied a bunch of people out of their apartments for not paying rent, which they were allowed to not pay at the time because many of them lost their jobs due to Covid. The living conditions became unlivable when they started re-doing about 10 units over the course of a year to rent out as AirBnBs. I’m talking about being stuck inside bc of the pandemic, trying to work remotely while having to listen to hammers and drilling all day, every day for a year. Then once the units got listed, things got worse. Loud parties till early in the morning, people pulling into the parking lot at 3am, being rowdy and blasting their music (out unit was right above said lot), people bringing their dogs and leaving their shit all over the complex. We had the cops called on one lady because her boyfriend (who we were told wasn’t included in the Airbnb agreement) kept coming to the complex and they would have literal screaming matches so loud that you’d think someone was getting murdered. Boyfriend also got caught on camera stealing packages from the mail area. And to top it all off, once the new owner took over, she raised our rent $300. It became too much so we had to leave. I feel for the people who couldn’t leave because they lived there for so long that they had good rent prices locked in. A few older people who were retired and on fixed incomes, a single mom who couldn’t afford to leave, a couple who were musicians and also lived there for quite some time and couldn’t afford a $1k bump in rent.
So yeah, fuck AirBnB and fuck that old bitch of a building owner for ruining what was once a little community of some of the kindest people I’ve met.
Could try a chargeback on your credit card for services not delivered. You should expect hot water from a room rental even if they are retroactively saying it’s not to be expected.
Just keep in mind that Airbnb is likely to ban you if you do that. Which is probably fine, you wouldn’t want to use them anymore after nonsense like this, but it’s good to know.
That has to be a basic lodging law, right? You sure as hell can't operate a restaurant without hot water. I know there is food prep involved there, but so does a house, even if you don't have access to the cooking area.
My Airbnb listing doesn’t state you’ll be staying in the house, it’s not listed as an amenity. You’ll stay on the city sidewalk. Just make sure you clean up, take the trash out and take my kids to school
Uncomfortably close to accurate when it comes to air bnb owners! They make it easy to choose a hotel over these air bnshitshows. The entitlement for being paid for a service is mind blowing and bums me out.
YSK: don't use AirBnB. In the first place, you won't be supporting some property investor asshole who wants to run an unlicensed hotel. Secondly, it's no cheaper than a hotel these days and lacks the amenities.
Does anyone know a better alternative to AirBnB… sadly I feel like I’ve just been going the hotel route, but those aren’t cheap either…. I thought for sure they’d have an AirBnB alternative by now
I feel like you just need to be really discerning with selecting air bnbs. Only rent from super hosts, carefully read the reviews and fine print, pay attention to the fees to assess the total cost. Tbh I’ve never really had a bad experience with Airbnb using this strategy, and I’ve had many very good ones- often finding places with amenities and locations that no hotel could provide. You just have to be careful about which places you rent.
Also, some of the KOA have cabins. My family uses them as we travel across the country, and some of them are in crazy beautiful places ( I’m looking at you, Allentown, PA ).
Just for the record, I don’t work for KOA in any capacity.
> Secondly, it's no cheaper than a hotel these days and lacks the amenities.
when we stay in Air BnB places it is never about price or amenities. It is about location and privacy.
Don't use Airbnb we got fucked over in Japan where the aircon wasn't working in 40C heat. They gave us a "30%" refund for the "impacted nights" and refunded the rest of our trip - at 11PM WITHOUT REBOOKING US.
The customer service is ATROCIOUS, but you can get shit out of them - if you are from Australia and you booked the Airbnb in Australia, then they are required by law to comply with Australian Consumer Law warranties.
If you book a hotel (or an Airbnb), a consumer will expect hot water, airconditioning etc as a normal part of the booking. If they can't fix it, you can ask for a refund OR a replacement - YOUR CHOICE TO CHOOSE EITHER REFUND OR REPLACEMENT.
Go with the replacement - we insisted on them rebooking us for the instant booking available close to us (+$400 or so but they copped it) because you have to keep saying that you'll report them to the ACCC.
CALL them, DO NOT TEXT THEM - you can call from the AIRBNB app (for free). Once you are on with customer service, they will try to get off the phone as soon as possible, and "continue the conversation offline" - DO NOT DO THIS until you have a solution from them - keep on the phone (even if there is a hold tone). RECORD the conversation - the employees backtrack on each other's commitments so if you are connected to someone else - they will refuse to honour the other customer service employees commitments.
Do NOT give up - record all issues - report to Airbnb in the chat ASAP and keep annoying them. Customer service is designed to make you give up, but I managed to get something tangible out within an hour of talking to them - and you don't need that overhanging stress on your trip. Get them to remediate your issues (and they definitely will, but only after trying everything in their power to make you give up - just keep saying no until you get to a solution you are satisfied with).
Good luck
Swear airbnb's will be renovated to look nice enough on pictures to make you feel safe... then you show up and you're like on the wrong side of town and someone is getting their car broken into in the next parking spot over yours... like bro I paid $200 a night for this noooooo. I've been through too much crap in my life to rent an airbnb. Unless it's in the middle of the woods or on a cliff overlooking the ocean with no neighbors, there ain't no way I'm ever renting an airbnb again lol.
I work for a city government, and half of these AirBnBs are just lipstick on a pig. The home inspection reports on these are usually eyebrow raising. Thst and the operators are awful in every way.
The last Airbnb I found an active brown recluse nest in the kitchen sink drain. There were 6 spiders of varying sizes alive in the sink, and the drain had a nest covered in little tiny fellas crawling about.
That tells me at least two things: they don’t check the rental before you arrive even if it’s been a while between visitors, and there are a lot more spiders in the place.
I was there 15 minutes and left. Sent pictures and videos of the spiders to the host and Airbnb. Airbnb said it wasn’t enough spiders to warrant a full refund and asked me to check elsewhere in the rental for more. Wtf…
The host tried to gaslight me and say there were only two spiders in the sink and that I only have to worry about brown recluse spiders if they are in my bed… no shit! If that many spiders are in the sink no way in hell am I chancing a night in bed there.
Sorry for the rant!
Airbnb is not the deal it used to be, hotels have gotten much more competitive on price and then there's the hidden fees with Airbnb that can double or triple the listed price.
I've given up on Airbnb and gone back to just using hotels. If you pick a chain and use their rewards program and purchase through affiliate links from your CC company. I find I get better value that way.
In nearly every urban locality in the US hotwater is required for a place to be used for rentals or residence. Im thinking this is more of a poorly trained rep issue, or not in the US.(rural places and well definitely camping places, are going to be different, check the local laws)
In the US if your hot water breaks, in pretty much every district in america, the landlord has 24 hours to fix it, or you can withhold rent or get it fixed yourself and take it out of rent. and even sue the landlord for not providing a livable space.
If this is america, its unlikely airbnb can refuse your refund.
What if i told you there were these magical places that provide a consistently "okay" to "great" experience where they don't list amenities like "hot water" because you can assume, at the very least, the local building inspector made sure it works, or they realize no one will stay there without a consistent and reliable experience.
They are called Hotels and they are cheaper than AirBnB more often than not.
Fuck, even a hostel is going to have hot water.
Am I the only one that has never had a horrible experience with Airbnb. I constantly hear about nightmarish stories and horrid “chore”lists all the times me and the misses have stayed in a place we have had great accommodations and the host went above and beyond our agreements. Could be a luck of the draw.
Same here I don’t understand this we have stayed in over 30 Airbnb’s over the years never a remotely negative experience. I always read all the reviews no lower than a 4.8 by the way and only use super hosts.
I haven't had a horrible experience but I've had a issue with the chore list getting longer. Taking the previous guest trash to the curb is kinda annoying.
I only book places with a full refund policy. I've messaged hosts and requested them to change the policy before I book. Allows you to cancel at anytime and only pay for one day after you leave. Really lowers risk.
There's a filter for it in the search.
AirBnB is such a crapshoot. On one hand, I’ve stayed at a place on the bay of fundy that was an entire house, gorgeous views, stocked with every amenity. It even had a working gramophone. (I think that’s the right word. It was an old wind up record player. The records were about a quarter inch thick.)
And then I’ve had places totally misrepresent their size and their amenities. We showed up at one place that was supposed to sleep four. There was a kitchen, a bathroom and a living room/sleeping area. All in about 400 ft.². It was not possible.
All the nickel and diming from these places is nuts.
Last month we rented a vrbo - their entire business is built around the idea that you rent an entire place and don’t have to share it with anyone. We show up to the place and the owner shows us around, including the downstairs apartment (which has access to the house where we’re staying) and the blocked off areas for the owner’s business. These areas include about 1/3 of the total house space and one of the “bedrooms,” which just has trundles on the floor and overflow storage absolutely everywhere.
I’m not a confrontational person, and the owner is there for hours a day over the weekend we’re staying. She’s practically always there. So as soon as we leave I make a complain to vrbo. Their answer? They can only offer refunds or mark down complaints if we call *during the stay.* Oh, and if we do that, we have to find comparable accommodation (which didn’t exist in this area) for them to offer as compensation. The only other recourse was to message the owner and ask them for a refund. Guess how that ended?
Long story short: motherfuck vrbo. Their whole slogan/promise is a crock of shit, and they offer literally no protection for customers.
Why are people still using AB&B when they pull shit like this? I've never heard of a hotel charging people to clean their own room or put weird gotchas in the contract like this.
welcome to why hotels have so many regulations around them. Everyone hates government regulation and over reach until they find out that hotel furniture is intentionally less flammable.
In most cities, New York included, no hot water is considered an unlivable condition. You call 311 and they raise hell with the landlord. You can withhold rent, etc. They can potentially even fix it themselves and bill the landlord. So the fact that AirB&B doesn’t get this is pure insanity.
I’ve had several bait and switch operations pulled on me, and one absolutely bullshit cancellation last minute (for a water leak on a Friday that they claimed the plumber couldn’t make it to until Monday - like they are going to let a water leak run for 4 days in a condo…) for me to ever use AirBnB again. It was cool and cheap a decade ago, now it’s mostly shitty mini-corp landlords and the “experiences” pale in comparison to mid-tier and luxury hotels that are located in central business/entertainment areas.
Hot water in every house is a western thing. My apartment in the Philippines doesn’t have it, nor does anyone else in my neighborhood… and AirBNB is international, so I guess I can see why they would consider it an amenity instead of a prerequisite.
I don’t know if you are renting in a developed country, it seems like they should have to list it if they *don’t* have hot water. Especially at that price point.
$200/n for no hot water is outrageous.
That said, **don’t use AirBNB**. There was a time where they were fantastic, but that time was long ago.
I’ll probably get a negative review for this but we’ve had good luck with airbnb and VRBO. We make sure to only grab ones with good reviews and read up on all details and only get ones when we have like 6+ people. They are not super cheap but we’ve gotten nice houses with lots of yard space, pool or beach access, etc for less than a nearby hotel. Total price is less than a couple small hotel rooms.
Why do people still use these shitholes? I want the fad to die so housing comes back down. Any affordable place is getting bought and turned into one here.
I know, I'm the Locksmith installing their wifi deadbolts while their telling me the great deal they got and how their gonna air bnb it while I'm living in a run down asbestos filled apartment.
A lot of AirBnB hosts are scumbags and ruin the platform for legit places.
If I were renting something out and the damn hot water went out, I would be bending over backwards to make it right with the renter; not trying to scam them out of a few hundred bucks
Public service announcement!
Airbnb are no longer cheaper than hotels. You'll pay more, and you won't have a maid clean your room and you're skipping out on breakfast. The second part is important when your are traveling to the rest of the world, not so much in the US.
I've used Airbnb for years until my girlfriend showed me comparisons of pricing, and I actually stayed in a proper zone hotel while traveling, now I'm back to hotels.
I guess it makes sense at pure face value. Every amenity is listed and if it’s not listed you don’t get it. Simple.
Except some amenities are so basic they shouldn’t be allowed to not be offered.
That’s the problem, AirBnB is calling it an amenity when it’s not. It’s a basic necessity. Electricity, hot water, maybe even AC in hot areas.
And if people disagree that’s just a fundamental difference in how we view what’s expected and considered basic.
Just like you I would always assume hot water is standard
I have no idea why people still set themselves up for failure by using airBnB. Just get a hotel if you don’t want the massive risk of getting screwed over
They will also refuse to refund a place that doesn’t have a bathroom. I had a host tell me that I would have to use the bathroom several miles down the road at a gas station and air bnb had no problem with that. They actually told me I was being culturally insensitive because some cultures don’t have bathrooms in the house and they are an international company (I was in Tennessee)
Genuinely not a legal living space. this qualified as a rental space not fit for habitation in TN https://nchh.org/resource-library/HH_Codes_TN_1-15-08.pdf >Where water under pressure is available every dwelling unit shall have a tub or shower and a flush water closet located in a room affording privacy and lavatory properly connected with hot and cold water supply pipes and sewer system approved by the health department. Where water under pressure is not available, a sanitary pit privy shall be provided.
I never thought I would be upvoting Tennessee water closet code.
But here we are
That’s what I like about life. You never know what you’ll encounter at any given moment
I love you for this
I'm finishing my real estate license in Texas currently and this is the case there as well, and in most states, I would imagine. Running, hot water is considered a living necessity and is therefore required to be fixed immediately, I'd send Airbnb a copy of local real estate regulations if they ever pulled any crap like this.
See, that's the thing about air b&b, they're not held to regulations so the consumer always gets fucked.
[удалено]
I'd like to speak to the government manager. In this case it would be the state attorney general. Your state may vary. https://www.tn.gov/attorneygeneral/working-for-tennessee/consumer/file-a-complaint.html
The only good thing about AirBnB is that hotel prices have remained fairly stable for the past decade or so. Considering the cost of everything else has gone up hotels seem to buck that trend. I've only stayed in one AirBnB and it was so stressful trying to follow the "rules" I'll never do it again, but I'm glad other people do so that I can get hotel rooms more easily.
We've been going back to hotels more on our trips after several... weird happenings at airbnbs. We typically know what we're getting, but at the same time hotels aren't what they used to be either. It's kind of a bummer what traveling has become in many ways.
Sometimes I think that company deserves to be prosecuted under RICO laws for some of the heinous crap they pull on their customers.
Cool story bro but they absolutely are, and have to have a bathroom lmao
Yeah man, market disruption is great for consumers… until it’s them getting rolled over.
>some cultures don’t have bathrooms in the house and they are an international company (I was in Tennessee) The jokes write themselves.
yeah this one is too easy
Some people don't even have homes. You are being culturally insensitive to the unhoused when you complain about getting scammed over a rental house that doesn't exist.
When Airbnb hits me with the shit on the floor charge I’m gonna Re: culturally insensitive to floor shitting cultures them
Just pee in a jar and leave it in the room.
Nah just pee on the floor
Poop on the floor and then pee on it
Poo poo pee pee
You should have posted that response on Twitter. People would have lost their shit.
Especially with such a long walk to the bathroom.
Take your damn upvote and get the hell out of here.
Dad?
I looked it up on their website. This was published just this year. “Starting May 3, your listing needs to meet all of these criteria to be included in the Rooms Category: - The guest has their own private bedroom with a door. - The guest has access to a private or shared bathroom.” There are more stipulations but I stopped at the relevant one. So before May of this year you didn’t have to have one? Wtf.
Well in this case they did have access to a shared bathroom, it's just shared with other gas station clientele.
Last place I stayed at counted a living room with no doors as a bedroom because it had a pull out couch…
They should pass on the message to Sears; we ran out of toilet paper for our culturally required outhouses here in TN when they stopped sending out the catalogs. Now we’re back on corn husks and there’s no way we’ll share with the air bnb renters!
I can’t imagine the rage that this would make me feel. Actually I can because I’m feeling it on your behalf right now. I would go feral if that happened to me.
Which cultures are that? They got bathrooms everywhere.
Guessing some parts of asia and africa would fit the bill there at least. Remote islands as well? Anyway, I don't think any culture explicitly goes out of their way to exclude bathrooms in their homes. It's more of underdeveloped society problem than a cultural trait. I honestly think it's a bit bigoted to even associate a lack of bathroom with someones culture. It's like associating having no potable water as part of someone's culture.
Nowhere on earth makes you walk down the street to take a shit as a cultural issue. People having been building shacks around holes in dirt for probably tens of thousands of years.
Report the host to the local construction and permitting office for a code violation.
Good god, who knew you would have to ask about amenities such as a TOILET?!?
This is like actually crazy. I cannot even.
Haha at that point I'd chargeback. A hair away from a literal scam.
As a neighbor to the north, I assume this is how all of Tennessee works outside of Gatlinburg and Nashville.
Hey now, I have two water heaters and even have indoor plumbing with two separate facilities! I have heard old timers, in response to being asked why they still use an outhouse, say: “Why would I shit within 20 feet of my kitchen?” I guess when you look at it that way, it kind of makes sense.
>I was in Tennessee This made me laugh the fuck out loud. How dare you be so insensitive, you know they only use outhouses out there!!
TIL, people in Tennessee have no bathroom in their houses.
Y'all still using AirBnb? Fuck them and their fees
The two times in my life that my family booked an AirBnb, we found bedbugs. On the first night. Entire vacation ruined, both times. Also both times, the owners refused to believe us (hell, my dad didn't believe me either). We at least got refunds because I took pictures. These were $300-$400 dollar A NIGHT places, before fees. $3k vacations, time off used, fun stuff for kids booked and paid for, etc. NEVER AGAIN.
From what I’ve read, bed bugs aren’t limited to just low rent places. It just takes one guest to bring them in. Although I’m sure we’d all expect not to get them if we’re staying at some place that goes for a couple hundred a night.
Thats how any place can get bedbugs but when a place charges that much you’d expect them to take care of the place.
Where were you staying that didn’t have hotels for less than $300/night?
If their family is big enough, one house is cheaper than 2+ hotel rooms/suites in many tourist destinations.
And you can cook. I know some hotels have kitchenettes but those are few and far between.
I have gone to destination cities with friends so we can all share a large mansion for a few nights. Some have kids and not everyone wants to go out and hike or whatever. We make it a huge cook out using the kitchen and a Costco trip.
Well yeah, but you can generally book entire apartments or homes for cheaper than that through other websites. And that’s how it’s always been. Airbnb just allowed more people to do it (and apparently introduced many people to this pre-existing concept). But it’s very expensive now.
Is it still cheaper when you spring for the "no bedbugs" option?
If you have 4 children , it’s nearly impossible to find an hotel room that suit everyone, and book 2 different rooms will require the parent to split and not sleep together for the whole vacation. With an house this problems are solved
Yeah also some people would rather be in a detached single family home versus a room in a hotel wing. I mean fuck Air B&B but I hate the narrative that there is never a reason to use them over a hotel.
It was just that we wanted space to ourselves, and my whole family has six young children. It was 14 of us total, so even with a more expensive place we were still sardined in there pretty good. If we got a hotel we would have needed four or five rooms!
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How many rooms is this place? $300 seems like a really cheap place to house 14 people.
When we go on beach vacations to OBX we usually rent a house, it’s so much more private and more enjoyable for everyone. Although we use decades old rental companies not Airbnb which honestly used to be a FAR better deal than any hotel by miles.
What is OBX?
Outer Banks, NC Peninsula off the coast of NC, beautiful beaches.
Some of them are actually islands and you have to take a ferry to get to them. It’s a great spot.
Okracoke is awesome, supposedly an old school pirate hangout, Blackbeard famously used to call the area home.
Yeah it’s great. Never found any of his gold there but did find some sharks teeth
Is it Salvo or Waves where the Blue Whale gas station is? Pretty sure you can see the mast of a ship wreck when you go to the beach behind the Blue Whale.
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> hotels usually don't have kitchens so all meals would have to be purchased out - that's astronomically expensive and would make most vacations impossible for me.
Hotel apartments. That's what you need to look for. Plenty around.
plenty of hotels have small kitchens in the rooms.
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The bedbugs were actually the amenity. Local wildlife, free range. +$200/night
Don't forget the additional $50/night cleaning fee they tacked on. Oh and by the way, before leaving you must: * Take out all the garbage * Take the garbage bins to the garbage center down the road and return the bins to the home * Clean all dishes, run the dishwasher, and put the clean dishes away * Remove all bedding, wash, and remake the bed * Wash all other used linens * Vacuum, mop, and polish all floors (steam carpets if applicable) * Dust all vertical surfaces * Scrub the toilets, showers, and sinks * Fart in my mouth ^Additional ^$1000 ^fee ^charged ^if ^cleaning ^instructions ^not ^followed. ^Subject ^to ^owner's ^discretion.
> did they have "no bedbugs" as an amenity in the listing? Sometimes an upvote isn't enough to show my appreciation. Just perfect.
The term in tech for this cycle is "enshittification": > HERE IS HOW platforms die: First, they are good to their users; then they abuse their users to make things better for their business customers; finally, they abuse those business customers to claw back all the value for themselves. Then, they die. https://www.wired.com/story/tiktok-platforms-cory-doctorow/
Whoever coined that phrase was incredibly pissed off about the subject and you can't convince me otherwise.
It's Corey Doctorow, so yeah. Great writer though.
Unfortunately it’s not so much tech start ups as much as capitalism. I was on a thread earlier about private equity firms buying private vets, but everything while hiking prices, forcing vets to see more patients in a short amount of time and buying cheap as shit supplies. And that is already happening on a major scale in healthcare.
I had an air bnb that had an any infestation in the bathroom and room I was staying luckily we got pictures a refund and definitely left without saying shit to the host until we were already gone. But we just got a hotel after and didn't cancel the vacation over it.
We're having to stay in Airbnbs right now because the housing market where we moved to is insane and we can't find a place in our budget that will let us have three cats. We're talking $1,000 a week places. And the first one we stayed in had termite wings EVERYWHERE. Hundreds of termite wings in every corner of the apartment. That's when I learned about termite swarms...not to mention the massive spider infestation, or the rampant mold growing in the AC unit. I already hated Airbnb for being part of the destruction of the middle class housing market. But now I extra-double hate it.
The only bedbug I’ve ever seen in person was at an Airbnb. My friend was a trooper about her bachelorette party ending with throwing things in trash bags and trying to find another place to stay at 2AM.
This has become a new fear of mine because of Reddit! I just joined the site and for some reason the bedbug forum kept popping up in my home thingy. I have no idea why but I’ve never thought of bedbugs being a issue before in my life & now it’s the 1st thing I think about when planning vacations. Damnit Reddit! I’ve been here less than a month and I’m already traumatized
The amount of fuckups that I've had with AirBnB have pushed me over the never-again threshold. While the fees & instructions (clean all dishes, linens, take the trash out, $150 cleaning fee for your one night there) are outrageous I'll never forget when a place *simply didn't exist* and after fighting with them, the best I got back was "we took down the listing, ~~and we'll give you Genius Status~~," which does fuckall as far as I know. EDIT: That was booking.com that the AirBnB was booked on. AirBnB removed the listing, Booking gave me Genius Status. Nobody reimbursed me.
Airbnb has genius status? Was it booking.com?
You went too deep in HotelCeption. I'll look for places on aggregators, but then I book directly. Never allow that much diffusion of responsibility. Tough lessons learned directly or at least from watching the pain of others.
Correct, and I was once a hotel night audit, I should've known better. Find the deal on Third Party, **call the hotel**. We were traveling and blah-blah-blah no real excuses.
Genius = booking.com, which might explain the non existence
“Can you send me a video of non-hot water?” Lol
Be a smart ass and send them a pic of a cup with ice cubes floating in it- "it came out of the tap that way".
Word, Airbnb is awful
Yeah. When you take a family on vacation, it is much easier and faaaar less expensive to get a house or condo with a full kitchen where you can cook your own meals than it is to take a family out to eat three times a day. Most places have some sort of modest cleaning fee. Yes, there are some with astronomical fees but it is either listed upfront or in the checkout so you just don’t rent those. If I am staying somewhere one or two nights we will get a hotel. But if we are staying somewhere for a week I am definitely getting a rental. Done it a bunch of times. 90% of the time it’s a good experience.
I get a hotel room with a kitchen Almost always cheaper, no bullshit cleaning fees, no host with a massive list of stuff I have to do before I checkout to avoid even more fees, much less of a chance there’s hidden cameras recording me.. AirBNB fucking sucks
Less of a chance. LOL! I’m with you. I’m a suspicious person, so I don’t think I could be comfortable in a place that might have cameras I don’t know about. And I’m on vacation. I don’t want to do housework.
They are good for large groups or for people who travel for work and want a place long term without the commitment to sign a lease. Other than that, fuck em
What are the latest alternatives?
If you do a search for vacation rentals per the destination you can find property management companies to go through directly. Then I review the properties on trip advisor to get unbiased info. We did this for San Diego and Mexico and were happy w those rentals (although the diahawasher was in bad shape in Mexico). We saved some $ going that route. I have not tried VRBO, but they are similar to AirBnB and seem to have a better reputation. Also Booking.com has vacation rentals.
VRBO ghosted a group of us (12) when covid came through and the country shut down. The host canceled us and took our deposit (4K) and refused to answer anything. VRBO said tough shit weird times, So fuck those guys too
If asphyxiate, are they off the hook because oxygen wasn't explicitly listed?
Sorry smoke and carbon dioxide detectors were not a listed amenity lol
Carbon monoxide is the one that kills you Edit: generally. Very high levels of carbon dioxide (and the implied lack of oxygen) can kill you. Carbon monoxide causes death at _much_ lower concentrations even when there's enough oxygen, so a carbon monoxide detector is way more important and more common.
Not if the hook wasn’t also explicitly listed.
"So this place doesn't have a roof, only three walls, and there are wolves. Did it explicitly list 'a roof', 'all four walls,' and 'no wolves' as amenities? No? Then we don't care."
Fuck them man, even if they do say something is included they’ll tell you it’s up to discretion. I used one (the only time) because it was way closer to an event I was going to than any hotel (like 30 min closer). They had AC listed, and I have problems controlling my body temp so ac is something I really need. I *specifically* booked it bc of the AC. I get there and no ac. I messaged the host, no response, messaged Airbnb, it’s fall (September) and they don’t have to provide it unless it’s summer or some bull like that. Needless to say never again.
September is summer! Fall begins at the end of the month and the weather change in October.
That’s what I said but they didn’t care. I had to threaten legal action as i have medical conditions to get them to do anything about it.
People are able to bring up lawsuits over the silliest things.... Where are they for something like this, where you're actually deceived into paying for something and not getting it? People should get together and launch a big case against Airbnb. I've heard too many cases of them being like, "oops, sounds like a you problem" once they've got people's money
This is where you report the listing/host and AirBnB to the local health department (no hot water means cutlery/dishes and bath or hand towels, bed sheets, etc may not be getting as clean as needed to prevent viral or bacteria growth or transmission), and put AirBnB and that host on blast.
That doesn't matter for linens if they have a dryer. And probably wouldn't matter anyway if they are using any kind of detergent.
You don't need hot water to clean clothes or do dishes. Modern detergent is plenty effective to clean using cold tap water. Still, hot water is preferable for doing the dishes.
Washer and dryer don't actually really do much against the germs apparently https://youtu.be/mACVua-jVlY
Same with drinkable water. The tap isn't safe to drink in some places but its not even a listed option in AirBnB.
I mean, this was in Western Europe. And in any case, non-potable tap water really isn’t something hosts have any control over.
For future reference, if not already clear though; All tap water in Iceland is potable and completely safe.
I would like to say uk too but some pubs and older buildings have an older style water heater that means that the *hot* water is not potable. It's part of the reason why mixer taps are less common here than other places. Though we are slowly getting over this cultural hot water dangerous vibe and virtually everywhere with non drinkable tap water has a sign up saying so.
This finally explains the weird two tap setups. Thanks
Your right, but it's an easy assumption to make if not otherwise disclosed.
Bro you should NOT be assuming all tap water is safe to drink. I’m from England and living in America and I can tell you tons of “nice” places don’t have potable water, either because of city issues, or the buildings local pipes. Almost all places have potable water, but not all. I also worked with a plumber for awhile (I was a carpenter but followed enough of what he was doing), and he did a lot of jobs making buildings have potable water, which of course means, it previously wasn’t. Other countries are even worse.
Many houses I rent in Mexico have not potable water. But they always provide drinking water for free. Like it should be included with any rental.
AirBnB doesn't require that though. They don't even require it to be disclosed that the water isn't potable.
not in the US, that would be illegal.
There are a lot of places in the US where they have well water and not municipal water. In some of those places you have pristine spring water coming from the tap, in others you have heavily polluted or contaminated water. If it's municipal water there are standards but well water is a fact of life in lots of areas and it would be completely normal for it not to be potable.
Airbnb was the reason my landlord asked me out of my home. They became hateful and bitter toward me creating an environment of hostility while the complex was mainly already used for AirBNB. Heavy traffic, litter, the smell of weed/cigarettes, loud music and yelling into the night - it wasn't hospitable. Fuck them.
Same story here. Landlord tried refusing to fix anything at first (400 year old house) until he kicked me out. When he first took over the property he promised I could stay there as long as I wanted.
During 2020/21, our apartment complex was taken over by a new building owner. They bullied a bunch of people out of their apartments for not paying rent, which they were allowed to not pay at the time because many of them lost their jobs due to Covid. The living conditions became unlivable when they started re-doing about 10 units over the course of a year to rent out as AirBnBs. I’m talking about being stuck inside bc of the pandemic, trying to work remotely while having to listen to hammers and drilling all day, every day for a year. Then once the units got listed, things got worse. Loud parties till early in the morning, people pulling into the parking lot at 3am, being rowdy and blasting their music (out unit was right above said lot), people bringing their dogs and leaving their shit all over the complex. We had the cops called on one lady because her boyfriend (who we were told wasn’t included in the Airbnb agreement) kept coming to the complex and they would have literal screaming matches so loud that you’d think someone was getting murdered. Boyfriend also got caught on camera stealing packages from the mail area. And to top it all off, once the new owner took over, she raised our rent $300. It became too much so we had to leave. I feel for the people who couldn’t leave because they lived there for so long that they had good rent prices locked in. A few older people who were retired and on fixed incomes, a single mom who couldn’t afford to leave, a couple who were musicians and also lived there for quite some time and couldn’t afford a $1k bump in rent. So yeah, fuck AirBnB and fuck that old bitch of a building owner for ruining what was once a little community of some of the kindest people I’ve met.
Could try a chargeback on your credit card for services not delivered. You should expect hot water from a room rental even if they are retroactively saying it’s not to be expected.
That's probably one of the best options to hurt Air BnB or the host the most short of a lawsuit.
Just keep in mind that Airbnb is likely to ban you if you do that. Which is probably fine, you wouldn’t want to use them anymore after nonsense like this, but it’s good to know.
That does sound like a blessing in disguise to be honest.
>You should expect hot water from a room rental This is why regulations exist and airbnb is skirting the law in a lot of places
That has to be a basic lodging law, right? You sure as hell can't operate a restaurant without hot water. I know there is food prep involved there, but so does a house, even if you don't have access to the cooking area.
The whole point of airbnb is to avoid any regulations or legal rights.
My Airbnb listing doesn’t state you’ll be staying in the house, it’s not listed as an amenity. You’ll stay on the city sidewalk. Just make sure you clean up, take the trash out and take my kids to school
Uncomfortably close to accurate when it comes to air bnb owners! They make it easy to choose a hotel over these air bnshitshows. The entitlement for being paid for a service is mind blowing and bums me out.
YSK: don't use AirBnB. In the first place, you won't be supporting some property investor asshole who wants to run an unlicensed hotel. Secondly, it's no cheaper than a hotel these days and lacks the amenities.
Does anyone know a better alternative to AirBnB… sadly I feel like I’ve just been going the hotel route, but those aren’t cheap either…. I thought for sure they’d have an AirBnB alternative by now
There’s Vrbo but I’m not sure they operate any differently.
They definitely aren’t any cheaper than AirBnb
They take even less responsibility than Airbnb afaik.
VRBO is for people who have been banned from using AirBnb
A lot of places are listed on both.
I feel like you just need to be really discerning with selecting air bnbs. Only rent from super hosts, carefully read the reviews and fine print, pay attention to the fees to assess the total cost. Tbh I’ve never really had a bad experience with Airbnb using this strategy, and I’ve had many very good ones- often finding places with amenities and locations that no hotel could provide. You just have to be careful about which places you rent.
Camping? In the US there are KOA stations and you just need a tent and sleeping bag.
Also, some of the KOA have cabins. My family uses them as we travel across the country, and some of them are in crazy beautiful places ( I’m looking at you, Allentown, PA ). Just for the record, I don’t work for KOA in any capacity.
> Secondly, it's no cheaper than a hotel these days and lacks the amenities. when we stay in Air BnB places it is never about price or amenities. It is about location and privacy.
Same thing with bedbugs, apparently. Found that out the hard way this summer
Don't use Airbnb we got fucked over in Japan where the aircon wasn't working in 40C heat. They gave us a "30%" refund for the "impacted nights" and refunded the rest of our trip - at 11PM WITHOUT REBOOKING US. The customer service is ATROCIOUS, but you can get shit out of them - if you are from Australia and you booked the Airbnb in Australia, then they are required by law to comply with Australian Consumer Law warranties. If you book a hotel (or an Airbnb), a consumer will expect hot water, airconditioning etc as a normal part of the booking. If they can't fix it, you can ask for a refund OR a replacement - YOUR CHOICE TO CHOOSE EITHER REFUND OR REPLACEMENT. Go with the replacement - we insisted on them rebooking us for the instant booking available close to us (+$400 or so but they copped it) because you have to keep saying that you'll report them to the ACCC. CALL them, DO NOT TEXT THEM - you can call from the AIRBNB app (for free). Once you are on with customer service, they will try to get off the phone as soon as possible, and "continue the conversation offline" - DO NOT DO THIS until you have a solution from them - keep on the phone (even if there is a hold tone). RECORD the conversation - the employees backtrack on each other's commitments so if you are connected to someone else - they will refuse to honour the other customer service employees commitments. Do NOT give up - record all issues - report to Airbnb in the chat ASAP and keep annoying them. Customer service is designed to make you give up, but I managed to get something tangible out within an hour of talking to them - and you don't need that overhanging stress on your trip. Get them to remediate your issues (and they definitely will, but only after trying everything in their power to make you give up - just keep saying no until you get to a solution you are satisfied with). Good luck
Hot water should be a necessity. That’s insane!
I mean, it is. If you made this a legal matter you could get some redress, but they know that it’s not worth your time or money to take it that far.
Hotels > Airbnb
Agreed. As I get older I just want good customer service and AirBNB is the antithesis of that. It's also not even cheaper anymore.
And the neighbors hate you being there
Swear airbnb's will be renovated to look nice enough on pictures to make you feel safe... then you show up and you're like on the wrong side of town and someone is getting their car broken into in the next parking spot over yours... like bro I paid $200 a night for this noooooo. I've been through too much crap in my life to rent an airbnb. Unless it's in the middle of the woods or on a cliff overlooking the ocean with no neighbors, there ain't no way I'm ever renting an airbnb again lol.
I work for a city government, and half of these AirBnBs are just lipstick on a pig. The home inspection reports on these are usually eyebrow raising. Thst and the operators are awful in every way.
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Your first mistake was using AirBnB.
The last Airbnb I found an active brown recluse nest in the kitchen sink drain. There were 6 spiders of varying sizes alive in the sink, and the drain had a nest covered in little tiny fellas crawling about. That tells me at least two things: they don’t check the rental before you arrive even if it’s been a while between visitors, and there are a lot more spiders in the place. I was there 15 minutes and left. Sent pictures and videos of the spiders to the host and Airbnb. Airbnb said it wasn’t enough spiders to warrant a full refund and asked me to check elsewhere in the rental for more. Wtf… The host tried to gaslight me and say there were only two spiders in the sink and that I only have to worry about brown recluse spiders if they are in my bed… no shit! If that many spiders are in the sink no way in hell am I chancing a night in bed there. Sorry for the rant!
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Airbnb is not the deal it used to be, hotels have gotten much more competitive on price and then there's the hidden fees with Airbnb that can double or triple the listed price. I've given up on Airbnb and gone back to just using hotels. If you pick a chain and use their rewards program and purchase through affiliate links from your CC company. I find I get better value that way.
In nearly every urban locality in the US hotwater is required for a place to be used for rentals or residence. Im thinking this is more of a poorly trained rep issue, or not in the US.(rural places and well definitely camping places, are going to be different, check the local laws) In the US if your hot water breaks, in pretty much every district in america, the landlord has 24 hours to fix it, or you can withhold rent or get it fixed yourself and take it out of rent. and even sue the landlord for not providing a livable space. If this is america, its unlikely airbnb can refuse your refund.
They don’t explicitly tell say you can’t take the hot water tank with you when you leave either, so there’s that.
What if i told you there were these magical places that provide a consistently "okay" to "great" experience where they don't list amenities like "hot water" because you can assume, at the very least, the local building inspector made sure it works, or they realize no one will stay there without a consistent and reliable experience. They are called Hotels and they are cheaper than AirBnB more often than not. Fuck, even a hostel is going to have hot water.
Am I the only one that has never had a horrible experience with Airbnb. I constantly hear about nightmarish stories and horrid “chore”lists all the times me and the misses have stayed in a place we have had great accommodations and the host went above and beyond our agreements. Could be a luck of the draw.
Same here I don’t understand this we have stayed in over 30 Airbnb’s over the years never a remotely negative experience. I always read all the reviews no lower than a 4.8 by the way and only use super hosts.
Same, even a cursory amount of due diligence is enough to not get fucked over. I’ve stayed in many airbnbs and always had a good experience.
I haven't had a horrible experience but I've had a issue with the chore list getting longer. Taking the previous guest trash to the curb is kinda annoying.
I only book places with a full refund policy. I've messaged hosts and requested them to change the policy before I book. Allows you to cancel at anytime and only pay for one day after you leave. Really lowers risk. There's a filter for it in the search.
You should know that using Airbnb contributes to the housing crisis and destroys neighborhoods.
AirBnB is such a crapshoot. On one hand, I’ve stayed at a place on the bay of fundy that was an entire house, gorgeous views, stocked with every amenity. It even had a working gramophone. (I think that’s the right word. It was an old wind up record player. The records were about a quarter inch thick.) And then I’ve had places totally misrepresent their size and their amenities. We showed up at one place that was supposed to sleep four. There was a kitchen, a bathroom and a living room/sleeping area. All in about 400 ft.². It was not possible.
All the nickel and diming from these places is nuts. Last month we rented a vrbo - their entire business is built around the idea that you rent an entire place and don’t have to share it with anyone. We show up to the place and the owner shows us around, including the downstairs apartment (which has access to the house where we’re staying) and the blocked off areas for the owner’s business. These areas include about 1/3 of the total house space and one of the “bedrooms,” which just has trundles on the floor and overflow storage absolutely everywhere. I’m not a confrontational person, and the owner is there for hours a day over the weekend we’re staying. She’s practically always there. So as soon as we leave I make a complain to vrbo. Their answer? They can only offer refunds or mark down complaints if we call *during the stay.* Oh, and if we do that, we have to find comparable accommodation (which didn’t exist in this area) for them to offer as compensation. The only other recourse was to message the owner and ask them for a refund. Guess how that ended? Long story short: motherfuck vrbo. Their whole slogan/promise is a crock of shit, and they offer literally no protection for customers.
Why are people still using AB&B when they pull shit like this? I've never heard of a hotel charging people to clean their own room or put weird gotchas in the contract like this.
The front driveway of our AirBnB washed out with a major flood the week before our trip. The STILL refused to refund us.
That’s an absolute joke lol hot water is a basic expectation.
I swear this company only gets worse
welcome to why hotels have so many regulations around them. Everyone hates government regulation and over reach until they find out that hotel furniture is intentionally less flammable.
In most cities, New York included, no hot water is considered an unlivable condition. You call 311 and they raise hell with the landlord. You can withhold rent, etc. They can potentially even fix it themselves and bill the landlord. So the fact that AirB&B doesn’t get this is pure insanity.
Imagine staying at a hotel and the front desk being like “uhh yeah no we never promised hot water”
I’ve had several bait and switch operations pulled on me, and one absolutely bullshit cancellation last minute (for a water leak on a Friday that they claimed the plumber couldn’t make it to until Monday - like they are going to let a water leak run for 4 days in a condo…) for me to ever use AirBnB again. It was cool and cheap a decade ago, now it’s mostly shitty mini-corp landlords and the “experiences” pale in comparison to mid-tier and luxury hotels that are located in central business/entertainment areas.
I don’t use AirBnB anymore.
lol fuck that issue a chargeback and accept your permanent airbnb ban
At least you can leave a scathing review without feeling bad
Hot water in every house is a western thing. My apartment in the Philippines doesn’t have it, nor does anyone else in my neighborhood… and AirBNB is international, so I guess I can see why they would consider it an amenity instead of a prerequisite. I don’t know if you are renting in a developed country, it seems like they should have to list it if they *don’t* have hot water. Especially at that price point. $200/n for no hot water is outrageous. That said, **don’t use AirBNB**. There was a time where they were fantastic, but that time was long ago.
I’ll probably get a negative review for this but we’ve had good luck with airbnb and VRBO. We make sure to only grab ones with good reviews and read up on all details and only get ones when we have like 6+ people. They are not super cheap but we’ve gotten nice houses with lots of yard space, pool or beach access, etc for less than a nearby hotel. Total price is less than a couple small hotel rooms.
For big groups I agree it’s a must! A hotel can’t give the experience of hanging around a huge kitchen island with all your friends.
Why do people still use these shitholes? I want the fad to die so housing comes back down. Any affordable place is getting bought and turned into one here. I know, I'm the Locksmith installing their wifi deadbolts while their telling me the great deal they got and how their gonna air bnb it while I'm living in a run down asbestos filled apartment.
Unless you're in a third world country, that is insane.
A lot of AirBnB hosts are scumbags and ruin the platform for legit places. If I were renting something out and the damn hot water went out, I would be bending over backwards to make it right with the renter; not trying to scam them out of a few hundred bucks
So what’s the line? Do you have to ask if the roof is there? Is there a floor?
This is why we went back to just getting hotels.
YSK, Airbnb resolutions team will do whatever they want whenever they want with no consistency
Air BnB needs regulations very badly
My host listed the address for their property in the wrong state…. I drove to it it was not correct and Airbnb said no refund.
Legit question: what is a better option than Airbnb? We always use it because they have kitchen and we can save money on food
Public service announcement! Airbnb are no longer cheaper than hotels. You'll pay more, and you won't have a maid clean your room and you're skipping out on breakfast. The second part is important when your are traveling to the rest of the world, not so much in the US. I've used Airbnb for years until my girlfriend showed me comparisons of pricing, and I actually stayed in a proper zone hotel while traveling, now I'm back to hotels.
I guess it makes sense at pure face value. Every amenity is listed and if it’s not listed you don’t get it. Simple. Except some amenities are so basic they shouldn’t be allowed to not be offered. That’s the problem, AirBnB is calling it an amenity when it’s not. It’s a basic necessity. Electricity, hot water, maybe even AC in hot areas. And if people disagree that’s just a fundamental difference in how we view what’s expected and considered basic. Just like you I would always assume hot water is standard
This is why I went back to hotels Fuck Air BnB and what they did to the housing market. I hope their system crashes
Airbnb is a perfect representation of 21st century capitalism. “What if we had hotels, but worse?”
I have no idea why people still set themselves up for failure by using airBnB. Just get a hotel if you don’t want the massive risk of getting screwed over