Travel is incredible. You have access to entirely different landscapes, cultures, cuisines, people, etc. Despite your best efforts to plan ahead, things occasionally don't go as expected. These unanticipated catastrophes, especially the amusing ones, are what actually shape your vacation experiences. There is a seemingly endless list of things to do when renting out your house for the first time. You'll take your time polishing every last aspect for your upcoming visitors, from automating check-in to organizing your vacation rental agreement. But what if these visitors aren't exactly who they claim to be? What occurs if it is a true nightmare?
There are extremely few instances where things don't go according to plan, even though the majority of Airbnb hosts and owners of vacation rentals will only have wonderful visitor experiences to offer.
Reading these stories should make you feel relieved since you'll realize that it's extremely unlikely that it will ever happen to you. And keep in mind: establishing certain home rules in advance might help you save a lot of difficulties later on if you want to minimize the hazards. The form above or at the bottom of the post both allow you to obtain our funny Airbnb house rules template.
Here are 8 of the most outrageous Airbnb stories that will make you hesitate traveling...ever again.
#1 The Overzealous Host Who Folded Our Underwear
Source: refinery29
"My best friend and I booked this converted bedroom in a shared family home in the Shinjuku area of Tokyo. It was our first time using Airbnb, so we didn't really know what to expect. We stayed with a middled-aged couple and their six-year old son, and they were so nice to us. The mum was your typical Japanese mum who was super hospitable and always made sure that all our needs were taken care of: She served us homemade Japanese breakfast upon our arrival, and showed us how to work the washing machine in the house.
"We were previously in Okinawa, so we had already accumulated a sizable bag of dirty laundry by then. Dryers are not common in Japan, so we hung up our damp clothes on the rooftop and went sightseeing, thinking that we would collect our dry clothes later that night. When we got back to the house, all of our clean laundry — including our bras and panties — were back in our suitcases, folded into neat little cubes that would make Marie Kondo proud. We were very, very grateful the hostess went the extra mile to make us feel at home, but we were also mortified a complete stranger went through our underwear!"
#2 The Educational Tattoo Parlor
Source: refinery29
#3
Source: FinnegansMom
AirBNB in Toronto. Sister and I brought our passports. They demanded we forfeit the passports on arrival. We said absolutely not and after hesitation were shown to our space. The rooms did not match the pictures posted at all. The place reeked of bleach that had been used recently. We took photos of every room, and quietly slipped out when no one was watching. Reported everything to AirBNB and were given a full refund. Their ad was removed and host blocked. Seriously believe we narrowly escaped being trafficked that day.#4 The master bedroom
Source: beefwich
Trip goes well, we leave— and a day later, I get an email from the property owner demanding payment for a professional balancing service to be performed on the pool table. Five hundred ding-a-lingin’ dollars. How were we supposed to enter the master bedroom?
Were we expected to crawl over the table? Does the owner legitimately expect me to believe he had the pool table professionally balanced in the corner of the room, with two of its edges against the wall?
After several days of going back and forth between the property owner and AirB&B Customer Support with these and other questions, my credit card was charged $500. So I called my credit card company, explained the situation and they recorded it as fraud.
#5 The full refund
Source: LoveMeTenderloin
I told the property manager that the house was not acceptable and we would be booking a hotel for the night, and asked where to leave the key. I offered to accept a partial refund as I had taken a (freezing cold) shower and used one of their towels. The property owner refused and gave me an awful rating, accusing me of "tampering" with his property and "expecting the experience of the Ritz hotel." I sent AirBnB photos of the condition of the place. They gave me a full refund.
#6 Drug-induced orgy
Source: stuff.co.nz
Canadian couple Mark and Star King cut their holiday short after receiving calls from neighbours concerned about what was going on in their Sage Hill, northwest Calgary home. The couple returned to find destroyed furniture, smashed glasses, used condoms and underwear on the floor and mayonnaise and sauce smeared across the walls. Police said bodily fluids including urine, semen and vomit were found throughout the home. The damage to the two-storey house, which police attributed to a "drug-induced orgy", was estimated at between C$50,000 and C$75,000 (NZ$54,570 and NZ$81,857). Fortunately for the couple, they were covered by Airbnb's insurance policy for damage up to US$1 million (NZ$1.4 million). Neighbours said the guests had hosted a party for about 100 which was shut down by police after three noise complaints and reports of a fight.
#7 Bad vibrations
Source: stuff.co.nz
Sharon Marzouk came home to what looked like a scene from a porn film gone horribly wrong in 2016 after renting a bedroom in her Menlo Park, California home to an Airbnb guest. Marzouk walked through the door to find water trickling through the ceiling from the upstairs bathroom, SF Gate reported. The guest claimed she'd forgotten to turn off the tap in the bath, resulting in what Marzouk estimated as more than US$10,000 in damage. In the bedroom she discovered a vibrator, a large box of condoms, a few pairs of high heels, a bag full of used tissues and a hand-written list of "pics" labelled as "bent over green Abercrombie" and "blue and white skirt vibrator".
#8 "Found a hair"
Source: Quora