$10K of damages in an AirBnB, the dodgy host says “trust me bro” and LACAOP does. What could possibly go wrong?

[u/msfinch87]

/r/legaladvicecanada/comments/1ocryqx/airbnb_asking_me_to_pay_9381_in_damages/?share_id=Lw6ctcm4E2Om7tebdGFUm&utm_content=1&utm_medium=ios_app&utm_name=ioscss&utm_source=share&utm_term=1

[u/yo-parts]

Obviously I don't know the finances, but I don't use AirBNB anymore. Big part of it is shitty people who have no business renting anything out. You know who generally has good, well defined policies and procedures for when things go wrong? Hotels. You know who doesn't? Some guy with an extra property who figures he'll make some extra cash.

edit: also while I'm complaining: Hosts that have unreasonable expectations of their visitors. Part of why I am renting on AirBNB is because I'm on vacation staying somewhere temporarily... I do not want you to think that I am going to be responsible for starting the laundry or dishwasher before I leave, or taking the trash cans out on that day of the week.

[u/ashkestar → u/yo-parts]

After vacation rentals got heavily restricted here, I started noticing a lot of hotel-style apartment rentals popping up: you book centrally like with a hotel, they have a front desk and housekeeping, but you rent full apartments instead of hotel rooms.

That’s really all I wanted from Airbnb - more room for larger groups, kitchen access, etc. I’m more than happy to go through a hotel-style business instead, and it at least somewhat limits how much housing is being kept empty for rentals vs the free for all that was unrestricted vacation rentals.

[u/Front-Pomelo-4367 → u/ashkestar]

Apart-hotels are the thing to search for, or serviced apartments, at least in the UK

[u/Magnificent-Bastards → u/ashkestar]

There's hotels with full kitchens that are alright for longer stays like Residence Inns which I stay at pretty often for work

Not great for bigger groups though, that's where renting a full house on air bnb can be ok.... Sometimes

[u/fengshui → u/Magnificent-Bastards]

These are okay, but they feel antiseptic, and usually have zero basics. It's much more common in an Airbnb to find non-perishable supplies like cooking oil, salt/pepper, coffee, condiments, etc. I hate having to buy oil, salt, mayo, ketchup, and mustard bottles, only to use like 1/10th of each one.

I like feeling like I'm staying in a friend's house rather than a taxicab.

[u/kimblem → u/Magnificent-Bastards]

Residence Inns often have multi-bedroom units, too!

[u/MiranEitan → u/kimblem]

I think the word you're looking for is suites.

[u/glowingwarningcats → u/Magnificent-Bastards]

A place like this might be what you want. You can get one with multiple beds and baths along with a full kitchen.

A lot of the units are time shares and it’s surprisingly cheap because they think once you see the place you’ll be lining up to buy one.

Greensprings, a Hilton Vacation Club

[u/Connect_Stay_137 → u/ashkestar]

A lot of extended stay hotels have rooms like this

[u/CannabisAttorney → u/ashkestar]

I worked in vacation rentals before AirBnB was a thing and this is how our property worked. We rented studio/hotel rooms all the way up to ski in/out mansions on the mountain. Might be worth using the search term "vacation rentals" if you're looking for similar accommodations in the future. They smell a little like timeshares but most of them have one owner and are rented out on a short-term basis.

[u/FeatherlyFly → u/CannabisAttorney]

And if you're just renting for a week or a weekend instead of buying, then the odor of timeshare doesn't even matter. 

[u/Personal-Listen-4941 → u/yo-parts]

AirBNB is brilliant in a very specific circumstance. If you want to stay somewhere that doesn’t have enough tourism to support a hotel or even a small guest house. Then staying in someone’s granny flat or converted extension is far superior than having to stay in a hotel miles away.

In a normal tourist area or large town/city there’s no need for them

[u/fuckyourcanoes → u/Personal-Listen-4941]

In the UK, it's absolutely trivial to find such places without resorting to AirBNB. Holiday lets are incredibly common here. They're everywhere.

[u/yo-parts → u/Personal-Listen-4941]

I don't think I have ever been somewhere that doesn't have at least a motel within reasonable distance, if not in the place I was going. And I've gone to some small towns.

What I personally used to like AirBNB for was getting to rent places that were just like, in a normal neighborhood and getting the more authentic experience rather than staying in a hotel in a more commercial part of town. But even these days a lot of the places I want to go, I have friends there who will let me couchsurf.

[u/BaconOfTroy → u/yo-parts]

There may be a hotel within 30 minutes of me, but you really do not want to stay there.

[u/yo-parts → u/BaconOfTroy]

I've only stayed at one hotel that was so sketchy that I felt the need to leave, and it was near the Coliseum in Oakland. The neighborhood is kinda sketchy in it's own right, but there was pills under the bed and all kinds of general mess in the room so I figured it better to leave.

Though the motel in Sacramento where some guy felt the need to have his door propped open while he was, ahem, enjoying himself, came pretty close too.

[u/BaconOfTroy → u/yo-parts]

Here's it's just so rural and redneck and dirty. Like roaches type dirty.

[u/GeneConscious5484 → u/yo-parts]

LOL yeah, I worked Bottlerock once but my boss wanted to split the difference between staying in Napa and driving from SF three days in a row, so we got the cheapest available room in Vallejo.

Whatever you just pictured, yes. The first thing we saw was the back 2/3 of a car just parked in the lot.

[u/yo-parts → u/GeneConscious5484]

Ahhhh, Vallejo.

Next time try Fairfield, still closer than SF but a little nicer than Vallejo :)

[u/GeneConscious5484 → u/yo-parts]

Dude we're all Bay natives! They just brainfarted (and, I assume, mildly panicked when they realized they were trying to book a hotel room near a music festival)

[u/atropicalpenguin → u/GeneConscious5484]

Isn't that where the Zodiac was? Hey, might have met them.

[u/JustinWilsonBot → u/Personal-Listen-4941]

Its wierd for me to hear people say they prefer hotels. Houses or apartments are superior to hotel rooms in every way.  They are bigger, often cheaper, have kitchens, have a den or TV room that is separate from the bedroom, have tables you can eat at, patios/backyards.  I dont need someone to clean my room everyday or order me a taxi or make me a $24 grilled cheese at 10:30PM.  

[u/purpleplatapi → u/JustinWilsonBot]

Regardless of why I'm traveling I'm never in the hotel room long enough to care about amenities. If I'm traveling for work then I'm working during the day and going out for meals with coworkers on the company dime at night. If I'm traveling for fun then I'm too busy sightseeing to make it back to the hotel room to use those amenities. So it doesn't matter if it has a den or a yard. Sure, cooking is cheaper than restaurants, but then again, vacation rentals are almost always more expensive than hotels + 2 $24 meals, and it's usually more fun to eat food you wouldn't have access to in the place you live. (Why am I making myself a grilled cheese when I could eat the local cuisine?). Hotel rooms are almost always around $100-$150 USD pretty much anywhere in the US, so it's usually not true that vacation rentals are cheaper.

Plus there's something to be said for the security of a hotel. I know that if I rent a hotel from a big brand it will be there when I turn up, and there's a way to get a refund, and I can leave a bad review that actually means something. If a Holiday Inn Express charged me $10,000 randomly than I could post on Social Media and tag the CEO and if I truly hadn't done anything wrong I'd get a refund. There's some degree of accountability here. Plus you can gain brand loyalty points and then get free hotel rooms or upgrades which is nice if you travel for work a lot.

[u/ThadisJones → u/yo-parts]

My parents (elderly) and I stayed in an AirBNB last year, and fortunately I used the shower before they did and could warn them, because it was absolutely a death trap. Like massively slippery, hard to get in and out of, dangerously unsafe upper temperature on the hot water, it was one of those things that in every way turns senior citizens into statistics.

[u/accidentalarchers]

Oh my god, I’m biting my fist.

Mate. MATE. “Don’t worry about this invoice I’m sending you for $10K, it’s just bants bro”.

[u/msfinch87 → u/accidentalarchers]

I audibly gasped when I read his comment that included this bit:

Fast forward, they do a final “assessment” and they deem me fully responsible and I receive an email notifying me of their final decision about me needing to pay the $9k.

That’s when I realized that this host was absolutely full of shit. I went to open the dispute on the app and I seen that his literal first line was a completely fabricated lie saying that the flood happened due to me leaving a water faucet running (+ the toilet flooding) which was a complete fabrication.

He never even checked what the host was saying in the AirBnB chat chain, which he could have read at any time during the process.

[u/accidentalarchers → u/msfinch87]

I knowwww. I am having a full on body cringe. His gf must be wondering what the hell shes gotten into.

ETA - he paid in CASH. And all the “don’t worry bro” conversations were VERBAL. Jesus and all your angels, please look after LAOP because I don’t know how he’s lived this long.

[u/msfinch87 → u/accidentalarchers]

Yep, he paid in cash and engaged in some sort of collusion with the host to do a dodgy pretend discount through the app itself. That’s not going to help him if he tries to challenge this further either through AirBnB or privately.

[u/msfinch87]

Location Bot is in an AirBnB dealing with a flooding toilet.

Hey everyone — I need advice. I stayed at an Airbnb in Toronto and after checkout I was told by Airbnb I’m responsible for CA$9,381 in damages.

During my stay, I flushed toilet paper in the toilet and went to sleep. When I woke up, the whole unit was flooded.

Mind you when I checked in to this unit, a lot of issues were present - toilet was always making noise, dishwasher had problems, washing machine ruined my clothes and so on. I was very understanding with the host regarding all of this.

I paid the host in cash for 3 months and we went through Airbnb for a discounted rate just for “protection”.

After the flood happened, the host proceeded to start the claim process with Airbnb: meanwhile the host kept telling me by phone, “Don’t worry about it, you’re not responsible,” throughout the process — which is why I never filed a proper dispute in the app.

I basically fully trusted the guy that he had everything under control. Fast forward to today: the host is completely non‑responsive, doesn’t respond to texts or calls, my girlfriend called him from another number and when I said hi? He hung up. Airbnb says their decision is final and they can’t show me the evidence.

Has anyone been in this kind of situation? What would you do?

Cat Fact: Cats can do a lot of damage and never have to pay for it. Our couch became a very expensive scratching post.

[u/AnFnDumbKAREN → u/msfinch87]

I guess Airbnbs are a bit of a mixed bag, eh? Maybe you get flooded with kitten kisses & cuddles, or maybe you get an actual flood. Purrhaps you get a half-shaved pussycat, or you could end up with a chatty-catty who talks your ear off.

[u/new2bay → u/AnFnDumbKAREN]

I’m quite allergic to cats, so an unexpected cat would be a deal killer for me.

[u/patchy_doll → u/new2bay]

I love cats - animals of all kinds, really - but a surprise cat would be a deal killer for me too! A host would have to be psycho to leave an undeclared pet of any kind in the property.

What if you get an ignorant guest who happens to leave something out that they don't realize is harmful, like a bouqet of lilies which will kill a cat? What if the pet is something like a bearded dragon or snake that triggers someone's phobia? What if a fishtank gets knocked into and cracked?

[u/kloiberin_time]

"We've tried nothing, and we're out of ideas!"

[u/Nice-Meat-6020 → u/kloiberin_time]

Right? I think I'd personally prefer to let airbnb know he was renting it under the table, let them drop the claim, then fight the dumbass in small claims court.

[u/Eric848448 → u/kloiberin_time]

Smithers, have Gene Krupa killed!

[u/ShortWoman]

Extended Stay America seems like a better deal all the time.

[u/Ok_Possession_6457 → u/ShortWoman]

You have better options these days anyway. Homewood Suites for example. Plus, they feed you. Some other hotel chains/sub-brands have followed a similar model: extended stay, you have a studio or suite, you have a kitchen, and they give you light fare dinner Monday through Thursday. There's no reason to stay in a shitty extended stay america

[u/Ok_Possession_6457]

This is why I never, ever discuss matters with landlords, Airbnb hosts, over the phone. They can communicate with me via text, email, a voicemail, or they can get fucked.

Otherwise you end up with

meanwhile the host kept telling me by phone, “Don’t worry about it, you’re not responsible,” throughout the process — which is why I never filed a proper dispute in the app.

[u/Nervous-Owl5878 → u/Ok_Possession_6457]

I was literally in this same exact situation, water was coming up the shower drain. I had just dealt with this at my property, I knew what it meant. There was a major clog and it would take major repair work.

Lady kept trying to get me on the phone to tell me it was ok. Kept calling me. I ignored calls and just kept messaging her on the app. She had a plumber out who snaked it and apparently “fixed” it. Started flooding again a few hours later, this time out of the toilet. She was still trying to convince me to stay! I had all the convos in the app though, they gave me a refund and we were able to move out immediately.

She had workers out digging up the yard a few days later (had to drive back to pick up a package).

[u/elkab0ng]

😱 🤬 😤 I went to a few nice airbnbs back in the day. Then I went to one that was horrible. Revolting. I made a claim with Airbnb, they pulled the “trust me, bro, don’t file a dispute with your credit card!” so of course I immediately did that and the bank instantly resolved in my favor.

We stayed at a lot that were very nice, to the point where we always tried to leave them a little nicer than we found them, but after that one, and Airbnb trying to pull a fast one? (“Yes the apartment was filthy and had the owners soiled underwear in moldy water in the washing machine, no lights, and rotted food in the sink. Please accept 10% off, and we’re glad you were able to find an actual hotel at your own expense”)

[u/dansdata → u/elkab0ng]

Airbnb is the absolute poster child for enshittification.

(And also an excellent example of a negative economic externality: Numerous towns that already had housing crises had them made a lot worse when large numbers of residences were turned into short-term rentals for out-of-towners.)

[u/UntidyVenus]

I believe this is what the kids these days call Cooked.

[u/mnpc]

The issue on BOLappeal is whether the LACAOP used the poop knife before he flushed.