30 People Share Their Worst Airbnb Experiences

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.

We arrived at our AirB&B in Austin to find that the master bedroom had been quite literally blocked off by the pool table. We thought ”Eh, no biggie, they were probably cleaning and forgot to scoot it back.”

So we scooted it back to center of the room— right into the four little divots in the carpet from where it had been sitting before.

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.

The last and only AirBnB I stayed in pretty much put me off the service for good. It was a nice place in a great location, from the look of the pictures. A friend and I were going to a concert in the area that night and drove in from out of town. After being on the road for hours, we were exhausted and starving. Once we settled in we realized it was very obvious the house hadn't been cleaned since the last guest. There were small bits of garbage everywhere, dirty dishes in the sink, old food in the fridge. The advertised "second bed" was an air mattress with no sheets and the sheets on the master bed looked... questionable. Then I made it to the master bathroom. There were dark, thick, curly hairs all over the bathroom floor. One of the sinks was clogged with cloudy water. The bathroom mirror was covered in flecks of toothpaste and debris. There was no hot water in the apartment.

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.

My one and only Airbnb stay was at a nice condo in Long Beach, CA right on the beach. Once I got home, the hosts tried to charge me $7000 for damages that were 100% false. They claimed I broke their refrigerator, TV, and Internet, spilled oil on their couch, and stole their bathroom rugs. They also claimed I did drugs in their apartment.

Best part? I never met the host. Their housekeeper is the one that let me in.

When Airbnb requested photos, they didn’t send any. Imagine that

Here’s my AirBNB customer service experience: I woke up to an email saying that I had booked a $500/night room in NYC. I immediately tried to log into my account, only to discover I was locked out. I called their CS number and told them what had happened. They told me to log into my account and cancel it. I politely reminded then I couldn't. They said there was nothing they could do. I asked if they could at least lock my account so no further bookings cod occur. Nope. I asked if they could verify me in some other way. Nope. I asked if they could contact the person whose suite had been booked to warn them. Nope. They said all they could do was send it to the investigation team by email, so would respond within the next few days. No amount of my pleading or logic would get me any further. Frustrated, I hung up and immediately notified my credit card company, who were awesome. Then I had an idea: I wondered if the token on my app was still active despite the password change. Sure enough, the app on my phone loaded and logged me in. I immediately contacted the suite owner and told him what happened. He graciously canceled the booking and thanked me for letting him know. I then changed my password, removed my credit card, and reverted all the other info that had been changed. So, a happy ending for me, but the kicker is I never heard back from AirBNB. If I had followed their advice, I would probably have a $10,000 credit card bill by now. Eventually I canceled my AirBNB account completely after tiring of waiting for a response. Caveat emptor!

Guest has a one night booking. She booked approximately one week ago for a Saturday stay. She calls me Saturday morning wanting to cancel. I ask why? She says, it's raining and doesn't want to drive in the rain.

I reply that's not a valid reason to cancel, but I will allow it minus 15% of the base rate. She would be on the hook for any fees. She decides to come anyway. Great.

Fast forward to checkout. She calls two hours past check out in a panic. Someone in her group lost her ticket and birth certificate. Things she needs to get on her cruise. My cleaner is at the apartment turning over the unit, so no biggie. Guest heads over to look for her items.

She makes my cleaner go through FIVE full bags of garbage to find this envelope. Nowhere to be found. She wants to check the other units she's cleaning, units the guest NEVER entered.

Guest calls again in a panic and says, "I think your cleaner took the birth certificate."

I tell her, my cleaners save things like random shoe strings, lost socks, pamphlets for conventions, brochures, half used deodorant. Things I wish she'd throw away. There's no way that she took it. She loves working for me. It allowed her to start her own business and has three people working for her. A year ago, she was schlepping her infant around with her as she cleaned. Now she's a boss. She's moving on up to the american middle class.

Guest says, "She doesn't speak American good and she's probably illegal or something like that."

Me: She is a legal resident of the U.S.A. I report her income. She even LLC'ed her own company. She's not going to jeopardize her job with me over this.

Her: Can you come and search her?

Me: No. I have absolutely no reason to doubt her or anything she says. Perhaps your kid left those documents at home, which seems more likely than my cleaner stealing the documents. Where did your kid see the documents last?

Her: At home, but how do you know she isn't trying to sell her birth certificate on the black market?

Me: Because she's not shady like that. She's an honest, humble, god fearing type of person.

Her: How do you know that?

Me: She won't even take tips that guests leave for her. She's had chances to take diamond earrings, jewelry, laptops, ipads, phones you name it. She has never taken a thing.

Honestly, I do not like this line of questioning. I'm not coming by to search her person. I've allowed you to search the apartment, and apartments you and your party never set a foot in. You had my cleaner go through five bags of garbage looking for this thing. I feel like we've gone above and beyond.

She goes off on me about how I ruined her vacation. I remind her that I didn't lose her daughter's boarding documents. Guest even admits that daughter is forgetful and probably left it at home, but my reluctance to strip search my cleaning person is "bad customer service."

Rented out my flat in south bank London to two American teenagers whose parents did it for them. I had to be there to show them how the alarm worked as parents didn't trust someone not to break in when they were sleeping "And do god knows what to our girls!"

Skip to two days later and I'm woken up at 2am by a call from one of the girls frantic, they were being arrested and didn't know who else to call but couldn't tell me why. Now at this point I was worried because they seemed a little air-headed but nice enough girls. So I called their parents to let them know what was happening and I was going to the station for them and I'll call them as soon as I know more. When I got there I'm told that these two [girls] BROKE INTO THE FLAT ONE FLOOR DOWN and were trashing it. They thought the whole [damn] thing was more of a hotel but people lived in the trashed flat full time and were out that evening and had to come home to find two 19 year old [trashing] up all their [stuff].

I was so pissed. I called the parents and let them know and they were just weird about it. I don't know if they didn't believe me or what but they soon must of found it real when they got the knowledge that my neighbors were going to press charges.

I noped the [hell] out of ever doing Airbnb again and offered to pay for damages to the other flat but thankfully my neighbors were nice people and said that they wanted the girls who actually did it do pay for it. Kinda still feel bad for that but can't force it on them.

I had one "tenant" make a porn. I didn't find out until I was cruising [a Reddit thread] r/unexpectedsex (NSFW). I noticed my living room and kitchen

He didn’t have any concept about the idea of AirBnB being not merely a place to sleep but also to meet locals and learn about local culture. He did not like that I am a woman living alone and asked me many intimate personal questions, how much money I make, my mortgage. He demanded the security code of my place and treated me like his slave – demanded I do his laundry, make phone calls for him, wash his dishes, etc, and when I informed him that I would not do so, he got angry and said, “In my country women do all that, why not you?” and swore at me. He constantly ogled at me and it was extremely uncomfortable. Yes it may have been cultural differences – Middle East vs. North America – but his behavior was NOT acceptable.

I've had almost entirely great experiences. There was really only one that was so terrible it stands out:

Didn't respond to my welcome email or welcome Airbnb message telling them about the welcome email. Late in the day of check-in, I get a call on a phone number not on the listing from a guy (not the woman in the profile) asking how to get into my condo (it's not a condo, it's a house). After I confirmed they were in the party that made the booking, I gave them access.

Didn't hear anything from them again until the day after they were supposed to leave. They didn't leave, and one of them got injured and they weren't going to leave for yet another day. If I had had other bookings immediately following I would've noticed, but sometimes I don't get to my place until a day or two after the people check out. Fine, though, since I have no one checking in for a bit. I expected they would pay me for the extra days, but I had to go through Airbnb to finally get payment.

The real horror, though, was after they checked out and I went to clean. There were used q-tips smooshed into the carpet. Chewed gum and/or candy smooshed into the carpet. Used tampons smooshed into the carpet. Bloody tissues smooshed into the carpet. Food or blood or poop stains on all the sheets and comforters. They peed on the floor of the bathroom I can only assume constantly because of how much piss there was and how badly it reeked. Multiple unknown stains left in the carpet. They also threw literally hundreds of pennies all over the carpet in all the rooms. My carpets are very similar colored to pennies, so sometimes I wouldn't see them until they got sucked into the vacuum cleaner. They left all the air conditioners on when they left, despite the rules being very clear about turning them on whenever they leave the house and especially when they leave for check-out. I also later found out from my neighbors that they had well more than the amount of people allowed staying there and had raucous parties every night until late. I asked the neighbors why they didn't call me to let me know, since I'm on friendly terms with all of them and would've been happy to kick out the guests, but the neighbors are super awesome and didn't want to bother me since I never bother them when they're loud. I was very clear from then on that they could always please feel free to let me know so I can take care of it.

The worst was the three Americans I had come into the apartment last summer. They got wasted, came home, and threw a frozen pizza in the oven at the highest temp it could go WITH THE PLASTIC STILL ON IT, which made it melt/burst into flames. They turned the oven off and then threw water on it, and realizing that was a bad idea then used the fire extinguisher I have for guests. They didn't say [anything] until they left and I had the cleaning lady call me and informed me they ruined my oven. I went to Airbnb and complained, showed pics, etc and they charge their card for a new one (so like 350€) They tried to claim fraud on the their card for the charge and when the company refused as it was a legit thing, they left a really nasty review saying that it was my fault they ruined my oven because I didn't inform them it was in Celsius and I was discriminating against them for being American, which is bullshit, as I'm American.

The worst guest we ever had was a very large overweight guy. We will call him Willie. He seemed nice enough but he had a tendency to leave his milk cartons in the sink with the cold tap running instead of using the fridge 'because he didn't want to bother us'. This of course led to a flood in his room in his upstairs room but we didn't realize this until after Willie other problem came to fruition. Willie, due to his size, had a tendency to take mammoth [craps], [craps] so massive that our plumbing had issues dealing with it. Because he couldn't use his toilet and didn't want to trouble us with the overflowing toilet situation, Willie had started going directly in the shower and tried to use the hot stream of water from the shower to melt his mammoth [craps] down the drain. Lovely.

Anyway, Willie thought he had the problem solved, but all it did was delay the inevitable, the shower drain started flooding soon and this was where the fun part started.

A guest on the ground floor was complaining about the power cutting out to his room, turns out the problem was larger than that, something was tripping the power on that entire half of the bnb, we tracked it down to the bathroom light in the room directly beneath Willie's. I removed the casing for the bathroom light only to be greeted with a face-full of brown, slightly lumpy water.

This was how Willie wrecked 2 rooms, caused over £10,000 in damages and created electric problems we are still dealing with.

My first and last time using Airbnb was a complete and utter nightmare. I had just gotten the role I had been pursing in my career for two years. I flew out to Denver to take my drug test and start work that Monday. Everything was solid. I decided to stay at an Airbnb, thinking it would help save money. Little did I know the host has claimed to have been abducted by aliens, is on barbiturates and amphetamines, and was a former meth addict and who knows what else.

She seemed fine in the beginning but her stories got weirder as the days passed. I figured I was okay and I’d be gone soon enough. As for my own idiocy, I accepted a cup of tea from the host. She assured me it wasn’t weed tea or anything else funky; this was since I informed her I was supposed to get tested the next day.

I woke up a little fuzzy thinking it was the Denver altitude sickness. I went confidently and handed over my urine with not a worry in the world. I then woke up the next morning 5:00 AM to the host and her boyfriend beating the heck out of each other, then I was assaulted when trying to stop him from smashing her head into the floor any further. She climbed onto the roof, he ran, and the cops came. Maybe she was looking at aliens again…

Long story short, this was the most psychotic experience of my life. I failed my drug test, lost my job, and am now part of a criminal investigation. Airbnb has done nothing for me nor does it seem they care. I have other job offers and will stay in a homeless shelter until my first check comes in. My entire life has been turned upside down.

We did a bit and it was ok. Worst wasn't bad at all, but a bit of a culture clash.

They complained our house, a 100 year-old cottage in the New Forest, southern England, didn't have a particular type of bedding (only found in America), and didn't have 'bug screens'.

We tried to explain that 'bug screens' simply don't exist anywhere in the UK, but they didn't really get it.

We got a so-so review for having a house missing these so-called 'basic conveniences', despite our trying to explain that things are a bit different in the UK to America.

We were their first stop before they headed up to Edinburgh. I hope the rest of their trip didn't bring them too many surprises, but I have a suspicion they would have spent the whole two weeks [complaining] about how things are different to America.

I booked a room for three in Montpelier, France. The listing had great reviews, the photos were beautiful, and the host, Jimmy, seemed really friendly (also the price was good for college backpackers).

I arrived with two friends from college late at night, and we spent an hour in the street trying to contact Jimmy. When he answered his phone, he blamed us for being late, even though we had been waiting outside his apartment complex for an hour. Jimmy was very drunk, and he didn't look at all like his sweet and unassuming profile picture from Airbnb. He told us to "Be quiet in the hallways" because "the neighbors can't know you are here." We walk up 4 flights of stairs and then he tells us to take off our shoes outside. I realize there is a huge pile of shoes stacked in the hallway.

We enter the room we realize there are beds and people everywhere. 15 people to be exact. Jimmy was squeezing 15 guests into his small one bedroom apartment, and he had us remove our shoes because he had placed cots in literally every possible part of the house. It was impossible to walk without stepping on beds, and a lot of these beds were occupied with people trying to sleep.

The bathroom didn't have door, only a curtain. Our host obviously realized that this was a negative aspect of his house, so he reassured us that, "If a pervert is sleeping here, and he tries to creep on you in the shower, I'll kick him out."
One of my friends was a small woman, and this comment definitely freaked her out.

Oh, also, I had to share a bed. The host overbooked, so he put my traveling buddy and I in the same full-sized cot. The sheets smelled of cigarettes, and they obviously had not been washed.

We did our best to book a different hotel room with our phones, but it was after midnight, and every hotel in town was either closed for the night, fully-booked, or expensive (we were college kids traveling on a tight budget). we accepted our fate and decided to leave at the crack of dawn.

I go to brush my teeth, and when I finish I look back at my Cot, and the host is making out with a girl on my bed (I don't know if the girl was a guest or his girlfriend). I awkwardly clear my throat, the host notices, and without acknowledging me he takes this girl by the hand to the vacant cot nearby and continues to make out. My friends and I put all our valuables in our pockets and do our best to ignore the loud kissing and pillow talk happening six feet away.

We slept for 4 hours, then frantically packed and left.

Had a guest rent my apartment for a music festival and my wife and I came by to check on the pace and found that the guests were storing their drugs in my child's crib. We bought a new crib after we kicked them out.

Circle of Airbnb Hell Level 1: I originally booked an Airbnb apartment in Tokyo in the summer of 2018 for a long-awaited and carefully saved for trip to Japan, which was a graduation present for my son. Two weeks before the trip, Airbnb advised due to changes in Japanese law, I likely wouldn’t be able to occupy the Airbnb. I would have to rent a hotel at the last minute in Tokyo (along with all of the other people who just lost their Airbnb bookings and rushed to book hotels). I ended up paying over 2K for a hotel, over 1.2K more than the Airbnb I booked, fully blowing my budget. Airbnb attempted to compensate for this by giving me a coupon for $900.

Circle of Airbnb Hell Level 2: I used $328 of the coupon on a weekend Airbnb booking in DC. I ended up fully locked out of the unit, never got in, and Airbnb refused to refund the full cost because I didn’t cancel… which makes no sense – I was locked out. They even charged me for the unit cleaning, that I never got into. I spent $186 to stand in the rain outside a locked unit, listening to the host’s answering machine. After this I no longer wanted to do any business with Airbnb, but I had $712 credit left to use, I thought.

Circle of Airbnb Hell Level 3: I attempted to use the $712 on a vacation and guess what? It was a ‘single use coupon’. In the end, it was all a complete waste: out the 1.2K for the extra cost for the Tokyo hotel, out $328 for the unit I was locked out of and finally just out.

I’m an Airbnb hostess.

I was on vacation, and was woken by my phone ringing ringing like mad at 4:45 AM one Sunday morning. I had 6 missed calls. I didn’t recognize the number, so I silenced my phone and went back to sleep. 6 AM, and my phone kept vibrating off and on, so I finally dragged myself out of bed to answer it.

It turned out someone had made a booking at 2 am and expected to check in at 4 am. Our normal check in time is 3 pm. She claimed to be in a taxi looking for my place. My first reaction was guilt at not having woken up to pick her call. If i had thought more rationally I probably would have reminded her of our check in time, but well, I was half asleep. I gave her directions and then called home and woke my family.

And there started our experience with my worst guest ever. She had a little backpack which she handed to my bro in law, asking him to carry it up to her room. She wanted someone to go mop the bathroom floor every time she was done with the shower. She took everybody’s number and kept calling at odd hours with random requests for specific cookware etc. Every time someone took them up to her she would refuse to open the door saying she was busy.

I had to silence my phone when I went to bed because she kept waking me about random stuff. She’d made an initial booking of three days, and wanted to extend it. I ended up blocking my calendar on Airbnb to prevent her from extending her stay. She complained saying she was ill, she knew the house was available, I was doing it on purpose etc etc, but by then we all just wanted her gone.

Not me, but my dad; stayed in a place that turned out to be a halfway house/boarding house for released criminals.

I reserved a non-smoking room through Airbnb for 30 days at the last minute due to a change of plans. Upon arrival, the entire building smelled like an ashtray and the room was even worse. As a non-smoker, I was literally gagging and knew this wouldn’t work.

Upon further inspection, I discovered stains on the cover that looked liked dried blood. I pulled back the cover and saw dirt, a paw print, and hair (presumably from an animal but at this point, it didn’t matter). I notified the hosts who sent around an air freshener and finally some clean sheets.

The hosts refused to issue a refund and wanted to keep the entire fee (over 1,200 CAD) for a few hours’ stay. I was out of there as soon as another place could be found. I went through two case managers, who decided the best solution was to allow these creepy scamming hosts to keep half of the fees.

I pointed out to the case managers that it’s illegal to obtain funds through misrepresentation of goods or services but they evidently weren’t bright enough to grasp basic legal concepts. They gave me their final final decision tonight and basically told me to get over it. That’s not going to happen; I don’t like scammers. At least I will be going down swinging.