Glad I didn't do AirBnb

[SheitlQueen]

So section 8 tenants are now renting out their places on AirBnb? LOL! Did they give you complimentary food stamps too?

LOL! The apartment itself was large and beautiful and well kept. I never met the hostess.
I won't stay there again!
I have the feeling what the lady is doing is probably is breaking her lease. Don't know for sure, but can't imagine the place allowing their units to be used as a hotel.
I read online (after the fact) that this place has the lowest rent in the area and attracts all kinds of less than desirable people.

 

[cathy63]

Tried, but closed due to the rain. It's amazing how the locals act like nothing could be better, even though they are getting drenched while pedaling. We really have been enjoying sitting in a warm corner of a cafe after a soggy trudge somewhere. Today we are going on the one thing that I didn't arrange (DW did participate in planning a tiny bit): Beer and food tasting tour. Yeah, two things that might not interest everyone, but I didn't want to discourage her!

Don't know if you have much more time, but if you need another place to wait out the rain, try Bastard Cafe https://bastardcafe.dk/ -- very lively place where locals hang out and play all kinds of board games and drink coffee. DH had some online friends from his board game geek forum who suggested meeting up there. We also had a good dinner just down the street at Restaurant Nytorv.

 

[kcowan]

We are about to experience in Berlin, Paris and Nice later this month. We did find a suspicious airbnb listing in Berlin that sounded too good to be true. Upon checking with airbnb management, they confirmed that it was a fraud.

 

[BigNick]

We are about to experience in Berlin, Paris and Nice later this month. We did find a suspicious airbnb listing in Berlin that sounded too good to be true. Upon checking with airbnb management, they confirmed that it was a fraud.

Something strange happened when I booked a place in a small town in Ireland. On day 1 I looked at a couple of places and, not being able to decide between them, sent en a-mail to DW at work to ask her to choose; the rates were around 60 Euros. The next morning (DW hadn't replied yet) I opened the map and there were four new properties, all with very attractive (different in each case) young women in the profile picture, and rates around 300 Euros. I flagged up all four to Airbnb and they were swiftly deleted, but I wondered if this was just a bizarre coincidence. It was a very strange rural part of Ireland. Maybe there is some malware on my computer that detects when I am making a trip...

Another positive side of Airbnb is their customer support. I contacted them because there was a complex problem with a cancelled booking and I hadn't received 100% of my money back (it was nobody's fault, really) and I was credited with the remaining money within the hour.

 

[Sunset]

With a user name BigNick It's probably the Irish accent that caused the women to list properties in hopes of snagging you.

 

[FUEGO]

Probably the right choice, OP. I'm very hesitant to book airbnb places with no reviews or very minimal. Though I have done that on two occasions and was pleasantly surprised both times at how nice they were. In both cases, they were just getting started renting out their own places.

I like to go cheap on accommodations but Airbnb isn't a place to do that to an extreme. I usually avoid the bottom of the barrel places. If it's too good to be true it usually is.

 

[marko]

I always read reviews on restaurants, hotels etc. but I'm always reminded of a situation 50 years ago:

We were staying at a very high end resort hotel. There were two girls in their mid-20's who were sitting at the breakfast table next to us. We overheard one of them saying "...and look at this! The orange juice has things floating in it!! Ughh!...".
The restaurant captain had to explain to them that the 'things floating' was orange juice pulp. These poor fools had never had real, home squeezed OJ but were outraged.

Since then I always take reviews with a small grain of salt.

 

[travelover]

This discussion kinda reminds me of the blind men and the elephant fable. Any service as wide and varied as AirBnB is going to have a wide distribution curve of renter satisfaction. I do agree that it is important to rent from a host with a lot of good reviews.

 

[NW-Bound]

One thing I like about Airbnb homes in different countries is that I see how people live, the appliances that they use, their residential neighborhoods, etc... Previously, all I see were the inside of hotel rooms, and whether they are upscale or ho-hum they do not vary much.

One thing common among the places I stayed at is that they all have a reinforced front door with elaborate and study locks. It makes the typical deadbolt here in the US look like child play. One can just kick in the front door in most American homes, dead bolt or not, but not these steel doors with bars that engage on 3 sides (the 4th having the hinges). I should have taken some photos, but forgot to.

The only places without Fort-Knox-style of locks I saw were in rural Italian villages. Is security that much of a problem in European cities? I thought violent crimes were less prevalent there.

 

[Rianne]

Thought about trying, then they required entire cost, almost $1000 up front with no refund if we could not make it. I don't feel comfortable with that. I'm not sure if they're all like that, I assume it's up to the owner. Prefer to stay with established well known places. We rented a 12 bedroom 13 bath house in Dillon, CO. with good friends, gorgeous view and very clean through an established owner/rental that owned several other places near by. Awesome kitchen, every bedroom had a view and a private bath. Was $125/night per couple for 5 nights. I would only do this with good friends.

 

[Blue Collar Guy]

Hot off the press NYC woman crying she wants to go home after IRMA hits St Marteen. "Bender and three of her friends were staying at an Airbnb, but the hosts just "told us to cross our fingers when we asked her about the best practices for the storm." She said they contacted the embassy, who gave them a list of hotels that still had power. She said that at the Airbnb they had left, the roof caved in from the storm." Thats a good strategy cross your fingers hahaha. AirBnb are Illegal here in NYC (OVER 99 % are). Ill stick to the big hotels.'We just need to go home,' says American woman trapped in St. Martin after Irma

 

[travelover]

Thought about trying, then they required entire cost, almost $1000 up front with no refund if we could not make it. I don't feel comfortable with that. I'm not sure if they're all like that, I assume it's up to the owner............

The cancellation fee varies with each property but is clearly spelled out before you commit.

 

[Sunset]

Thought about trying, then they required entire cost, almost $1000 up front with no refund if we could not make it. I don't feel comfortable with that. I'm not sure if they're all like that, I assume it's up to the owner. Prefer to stay with established well known places. We rented a 12 bedroom 13 bath house in Dillon, CO. with good friends, gorgeous view and very clean through an established owner/rental that owned several other places near by. Awesome kitchen, every bedroom had a view and a private bath. Was $125/night per couple for 5 nights. I would only do this with good friends.

So if you paid $125/night per couple for 5 nights. and had 4 couples for the 12 bedroom home, it was $2,500 vs $1,000 for Airbnb.

Sounds about right difference in price.

 

[athena53]

The cancellation fee varies with each property but is clearly spelled out before you commit.

Agreed. DH and I cancelled a week in Iceland when he got too sick and we got all but about $150 back.

 

[Walt34]

'We just need to go home,' says American woman trapped in St. Martin after Irma

Like the man says, you can't fix stupid:

 

[shortstop14]

Very nice.

Here's our upcoming one in Bulgaria next month:

https://www.airbnb.ca/rooms/18903877

Might have to add Bulgaria to my list - the price sure looks right, and it's the type of place we tend to pick.

Echoing others, I've had good success with Airbnb - in the last year Berlin and the small town of Fürstenberg in Germany, Prague and Vyšehrad in the Czech Republic, and London. Chicago in past years. Most for a week or more, I don't usually bother with Airbnb for short stays.

We always rent the whole place, pay attention to the reviews, and write reviews after a stay. I also try to get a look at the area using Google Maps. I'm a lot more careful than when selecting hotels, and I've bailed on a couple where the responses didn't feel right.

For some reason, I've had better luck finding places with VRBO for longer term (a month or longer).

 

[Nemo2]

Might have to add Bulgaria to my list - the price sure looks right, and it's the type of place we tend to pick.

Echoing others, I've had good success with Airbnb .

Here's another Airbnb one, very well located, that we stayed in in Krakow, Poland, earlier this year:

https://www.airbnb.ca/rooms/8196810

 

[flintnational]

We have had good luck with VRBO including a few international stays. As others have indicated, we tend to look for several high quality reviews and lots of pictures. While we have saved some money compared to local hotels, we are not 100% budget focused. We like the VRBO option so we can get a balcony, a patio, extra bedroom or a kitchen. We have also had success getting VRBO owners to drop some of the extra fees. Just ask.

FN

 

[fasteddie911]

Have done a few Airbnb's and I would only consider them if they're significantly the best (price, location, etc.) or only option, I wouldn't choose one all things being equal. I've stayed in a Airbnb that had over 50 reviews and a near perfect rating, ended up being a dump, though the hosts were nice. Generally speaking, an Airbnb just feels like I'm sleeping over at someone's house, which I was never comfortable with. I'm not a fan of the check-in process and coordination, and I'm not interested in the Airbnb "experience," I don't really care to make small talk with people. I also do recognize the "issues" that airbnb presents, skirting regulations and codes, its impact on communities, etc., which somewhat affects my desire to use them.

 

[Ronnieboy]

I just finished using my first VRBO for our family vacation. The only other one I have been too was to St. Thomas that my brother had set up (It was excellent and the property was called an Estate).

Anyhow, there were a few interesting things that I am not sure of as being normal for VRBO or similar type rentals, so I wanted to get a feel for if it were normal. I don't want to give away too much info, just in case the owner is a member of this board

First thing I noticed is that the pictures used in the VRBO were definitely when the place was new - b/c getting there they seemed a bit outdated. No big deal though. The owner was there when we arroved to give a walk thru...I assume this is normal?? I don't know if this was to 'check us out' or make sure we didn't have more people than what we said we had or what but again, no bid deal.

When walking thru the house the owner had put labels on everything from where plates go to turn off the A/C when we left for the day. Some were helpful, others were annoying. There was mention that the previous renters were from AZ and they had the A/C running 24/7 which froze the a/c and supposedly caused a leak in the ceiling. She couldn't understand why people wouldn't want the ocean breeze blowing through the windows. As she is saying this I am literally dripping with sweat due to the humidity, temp and my obesity. I am thinking to myself, I'm going to crank these mothers to 70 as soon as you leave (they were currently off and it was 78 in the house).

She mentioned the previous people had the pool heated to 100 degrees and she was going to have to charge them extra because of the cost of heating the pool. I was told that the spa and the pool couldn't be heated at the same time and basically the spa lost water into the pool when the pool filter wasn't running which also meant you couldn't heat the spa to a hot temp when you were running the pool filter (I guess that is why the previous renters had it up to 100). I was told the spa/pool would be fixed the next day (Monday). She tried to show us how the trash compacter worked but it was empty and when ran it made some weird thumping noise so she said to leave it off and they would check into that on Monday too. They also had a 'rented' fridge in there b/c the regular built in fridge was broken.

This is going to be a long post....anyhow, we bought groceries stocked up what we needed and continued to enjoy our week. Couple of things I noticed...there was one roll of paper towels, nothing else in the house, one roll of toilet paper on the roller and an extra on the back tank. The first night of cooking we had leftovers. Could not find any aluminum foil or plastic wrap anywhere in the kitchen. I guess we need to supply our own? There was no shampoo, so we got our own. Bought our own laundry detergent and dryer sheets for laundry.

Monday the pool man stops by and says he needs to replace a valve, he'll be back in 1/2 hour. Owners husband stops by and checks out the trash compactor, all he did was turn it on, since we had put garbage in it, it seemed to work fine. I get a text from the owner to let her know if the spa empties.

Tuesday the family goes to Disney and I stay at the home to take it easy, pick up some of the above extra's at Target and maybe read a book. Spa has drained so I let owner know. When I am gone at Target, the fridge repair man comes over and lets himself in (he is related to the owner, so he knows how to get in the house) The owner texts me to let me know he is there. I get another text saying he used the whole roll of paper towels and a neighbor/handyman will bring some more over until she can bring some later. The fridge repair guy is there for about 6 hours. The pool guy was supposed to come and fix the spa but he is a no show. I am asked to check the newly repaired fridge the next day to see if it is getting cold and generating ice. No problem. BTW the fridge stunk like a mo fo being unused and probably dirty for so long.

Wednesday - supposedly the pool guy was coming in the morning. Never saw or heard from him. Was texted later by the owner that said the pool guy came by twice and we were out in the pool enjoying it so he'll come back on Thursday morning. I guess that is ok but to me morning is before noon and we didn't go out into the pool till 12:45 and we were out by 2:15 so I guess he stopped by twice in an hour and a half but didn't fix anything. The repaired fridge is getting cold, but it is not making ice and the rented fridge stopped making ice. There are no manual ice cube trays to make ice and I don't think the rented fridge/freezer gets that cold as the ice cream bars we bought on Sunday are barely staying on the stick they are so soft.

Thursday - Told that the handyman will come over and hook up the water line to the repaired fridge- the pool guy showed up and we are finally able to use the spa and heat it to spa temps.

Friday - a peaceful day no interruptions
Saturday - ditto to Friday.
Sunday - get a text, "when are you leaving so I can come clean"?

I forgot to add that the A/C unit on the kitchen side of the house didn't work. I think the Freon was gone as I turned it on and it didn't blow cold air the whole time we were there. It wasn't frozen as the unit had been turned off for over 24 hours. I didn't want to call the owner on it due to the comment she made when I got there. In hindsight I should've called as it put a mild damper on the vacay as the kitchen generated heat from cooking and the t.v. room where most everyone gathered was in the same area (open floor plan).

Sorry for the long post but I just wanted to get a feeling from people who have used VRBO or Homeaway or whatever if that is the norm? It felt like we were pretty much interrupted our whole stay and didn't have full 100%use of the spa (not that it was a big deal). I was expecting to be greeted by maybe the owner or property manager, told a few things then left alone till after checkout time on the last day (not that we would be there since it would have been after checkout time). Maybe a text 1/2 way into the vacay asking how things were but nothing like we experienced. Too much to expect?

 

[Sittinginthesun]

I just booked probably our 30th VRBO rental for two weeks in November and never have had a bad experience. I only choose homes with lots of recent 5 star reviews and never the value properties. We also owned a house on VRBO and by year three had over 50% returning renters and never received a review of less than five full stars. We were pretty much the most expensive rental out of 50+ in the community but people were happy to pay it for an upscale home that was immaculate and extremely well equipped. One of things I do like about VRBO is owners have zero control over reviews and if you get bad ones there is really nothing you can do about it other than write a response with your side of the story.

 

[kcowan]

We had one in Lucca that was not in the shape depicted in their pictures. The only direct impact was that the shower head was no longer able to be slipped into its bracket on the wall. We just doubled up in the other bathroom. The sun deck furniture was badly worn but that did not affect our enjoyment. Overall it was fine. But I don't understand why they would not reattach the shower head bracket. Maybe Italians do not shower every day?

Other VRBO rentals have been fine.

 

[Scuba]

I just finished using my first VRBO for our family vacation. The only other one I have been too was to St. Thomas that my brother had set up (It was excellent and the property was called an Estate).



Anyhow, there were a few interesting things that I am not sure of as being normal for VRBO or similar type rentals, so I wanted to get a feel for if it were normal. I don't want to give away too much info, just in case the owner is a member of this board



First thing I noticed is that the pictures used in the VRBO were definitely when the place was new - b/c getting there they seemed a bit outdated. No big deal though. The owner was there when we arroved to give a walk thru...I assume this is normal?? I don't know if this was to 'check us out' or make sure we didn't have more people than what we said we had or what but again, no bid deal.



When walking thru the house the owner had put labels on everything from where plates go to turn off the A/C when we left for the day. Some were helpful, others were annoying. There was mention that the previous renters were from AZ and they had the A/C running 24/7 which froze the a/c and supposedly caused a leak in the ceiling. She couldn't understand why people wouldn't want the ocean breeze blowing through the windows. As she is saying this I am literally dripping with sweat due to the humidity, temp and my obesity. I am thinking to myself, I'm going to crank these mothers to 70 as soon as you leave (they were currently off and it was 78 in the house).



She mentioned the previous people had the pool heated to 100 degrees and she was going to have to charge them extra because of the cost of heating the pool. I was told that the spa and the pool couldn't be heated at the same time and basically the spa lost water into the pool when the pool filter wasn't running which also meant you couldn't heat the spa to a hot temp when you were running the pool filter (I guess that is why the previous renters had it up to 100). I was told the spa/pool would be fixed the next day (Monday). She tried to show us how the trash compacter worked but it was empty and when ran it made some weird thumping noise so she said to leave it off and they would check into that on Monday too. They also had a 'rented' fridge in there b/c the regular built in fridge was broken.



This is going to be a long post....anyhow, we bought groceries stocked up what we needed and continued to enjoy our week. Couple of things I noticed...there was one roll of paper towels, nothing else in the house, one roll of toilet paper on the roller and an extra on the back tank. The first night of cooking we had leftovers. Could not find any aluminum foil or plastic wrap anywhere in the kitchen. I guess we need to supply our own? There was no shampoo, so we got our own. Bought our own laundry detergent and dryer sheets for laundry.



Monday the pool man stops by and says he needs to replace a valve, he'll be back in 1/2 hour. Owners husband stops by and checks out the trash compactor, all he did was turn it on, since we had put garbage in it, it seemed to work fine. I get a text from the owner to let her know if the spa empties.



Tuesday the family goes to Disney and I stay at the home to take it easy, pick up some of the above extra's at Target and maybe read a book. Spa has drained so I let owner know. When I am gone at Target, the fridge repair man comes over and lets himself in (he is related to the owner, so he knows how to get in the house) The owner texts me to let me know he is there. I get another text saying he used the whole roll of paper towels and a neighbor/handyman will bring some more over until she can bring some later. The fridge repair guy is there for about 6 hours. The pool guy was supposed to come and fix the spa but he is a no show. I am asked to check the newly repaired fridge the next day to see if it is getting cold and generating ice. No problem. BTW the fridge stunk like a mo fo being unused and probably dirty for so long.



Wednesday - supposedly the pool guy was coming in the morning. Never saw or heard from him. Was texted later by the owner that said the pool guy came by twice and we were out in the pool enjoying it so he'll come back on Thursday morning. I guess that is ok but to me morning is before noon and we didn't go out into the pool till 12:45 and we were out by 2:15 so I guess he stopped by twice in an hour and a half but didn't fix anything. The repaired fridge is getting cold, but it is not making ice and the rented fridge stopped making ice. There are no manual ice cube trays to make ice and I don't think the rented fridge/freezer gets that cold as the ice cream bars we bought on Sunday are barely staying on the stick they are so soft.



Thursday - Told that the handyman will come over and hook up the water line to the repaired fridge- the pool guy showed up and we are finally able to use the spa and heat it to spa temps.



Friday - a peaceful day no interruptions

Saturday - ditto to Friday.

Sunday - get a text, "when are you leaving so I can come clean"?



I forgot to add that the A/C unit on the kitchen side of the house didn't work. I think the Freon was gone as I turned it on and it didn't blow cold air the whole time we were there. It wasn't frozen as the unit had been turned off for over 24 hours. I didn't want to call the owner on it due to the comment she made when I got there. In hindsight I should've called as it put a mild damper on the vacay as the kitchen generated heat from cooking and the t.v. room where most everyone gathered was in the same area (open floor plan).



Sorry for the long post but I just wanted to get a feeling from people who have used VRBO or Homeaway or whatever if that is the norm? It felt like we were pretty much interrupted our whole stay and didn't have full 100%use of the spa (not that it was a big deal). I was expecting to be greeted by maybe the owner or property manager, told a few things then left alone till after checkout time on the last day (not that we would be there since it would have been after checkout time). Maybe a text 1/2 way into the vacay asking how things were but nothing like we experienced. Too much to expect?

This is unusual. Our experience with VRBO properties has been very good. Usually the owner does a walk through with us in the beginning, and after that interaction is optional. We did stay at a property for 3 months on St. Thomas that had a few maintenance issues during our stay but the owner handled everything and we were not inconvenienced. The owner fell in love with our dog and acted as a pet sitter for free!

 

[ivinsfan]

Agree on the unusual RonnieBoy....the owner was there to point out all the things that didn't function normally, unless this place is rented everyday, these things should be fixed in advance of your stay.
The usually say in the listing what items are included. my last place lacked for nothing including laundry soap and FREE dryer sheets.

My last owner was restocking the paper goods and stuff when we showed upa few hours earlier then I had estimated. he quickly left and said here's my number if anything comes up and just send me a text on your way out of town.

I would go on the review page and mention how many things didn't work. In fact you should have asked the owner for a partial refund.

We rented a lake cabin that was listed for sale and knew there might be a possible showing but the owner called on a Friday night and wanted us to be out for 2 hours starting at 8 AM on Saturday morning. I politely said we were 6 adults on vacation and weren't going to get up at 630 AM and it would need to be later in the morning. we settled for 10 and he gave us 200 dollars off the bill.

 

[FUEGO]

That sounds rough, Ronnieboy. I'd ask for a refund for a bit since you couldn't use some of the stuff at the house. And I would have complained about the AC. It's clear it didn't work and "freezing up" is BS - it should work regardless.

We spent 65 days in Europe and had a few instances like this where stuff didn't work. The owners were very apologetic and tried to make things right. One guy refunded 10% of the week's rental fee when the hot water didn't work for several days (we heated water on the stovetop and took tub baths in the very nice huge clean bathtub). The 2nd bathroom was out of commission due to a water leak the week before so it was kind of a cluster but worked out ok for us. It was somewhat rustic out in the country so kind of like camping filling the bathtub up with stove-heated water He offered to let us use the shower w/ hot water in the downstairs unit where his son lived but I didn't feel like hauling us and our 3 kids downstairs every night when the tub bath setup worked well enough. We also paid just $50/nt for the place so we weren't expecting 5 star quality/service but it was a nice place to stay overall.

The sparse offering of supplies is somewhat common in my experience. Some places had everything on hand, while a few offered little beyond a roll of toilet paper plus whatever kitchen stuff the previous tenants had left behind. Most didn't have aluminum foil, plastic bags, etc. Shampoo maybe 50% of the time and not always enough for all week. Soap, dish soap, and dishwasher detergent, coffee, and cooking oil all were pretty common. Reviews at airbnb were usually helpful in figuring out which rentals were spartan. And we always counted on showing up to nothing and needing to do an inventory and make a grocery run on our first evening at the rental.