30 People Share Their Worst Airbnb Experiences

Converted a rental house for Airbnb use. Bought furniture from Craig's List and Ikea, fixed it up, found a property manager for it. Turned on the listing.

Second booking was a 20-something woman with no previous reviews on airbnb. She booked the whole house for just one Saturday night. Our manager warns us "that sounds like she's planning a party". We respond that the listing makes it very clear that parties are not allowed. My girlfriend, who runs the business, writes to this woman twice and phones her once to remind her of the "no parties" rule. The woman keeps assuring us "Oh no, I would never do that. It's just me, my two friends, and my brother coming over for dinner."

Saturday comes along, we're staying in the house next door, and around 9:30 we hear music coming from our rental house. We look out the window and disco lights are running in the house. In the kitchen, a group of women are moving huge pots into the kitchen. A little later, we see them emptying ice, fruit juice, and several bottles of liquor into the pots.

My girlfriend decides enough is enough and goes over there to remind them of the "no parties" rule.

"Oh, no, we're not having a party, just my brother and his wife coming over for dinner." "Ok, then, where's the food? Who are all these people?". My girlfriend turns away about twenty people who show up at the door.

After breaking into tears and telling my girlfriend "You're ruining my life!", she agrees to leave, and the party is over. My girlfriend still had to turn away a couple of carloads of would-be partiers.

The night ends with two of the woman's friends pacing back and forth in front of the house screaming at my girlfriend. "You [pig]! You [damn] [pig]! Give us our deposit back! Come out and fight me, [pig]! [PIG]! [PIG]!".

Plants in the garden are uprooted. Pots are smashed. Neighbors start to gather. Police are called.

The next morning involves cleaning up, repotting plants, and writing letters of apology to the neighbors.

Had a guest from Italy for 3 months. I made dinner for her when she arrived and she made a point of telling me she threw it up (I am a good cook and have published a cook book). Two days later, her son arrived without telling me to stay the entire time. She used my address to establish permanent residency in the U.S. and to open financial accounts without telling me. She took a hammer to my quartz counter-top, causing $1000 in damage and then said it was gouged by someone else (no one else was in the house). She hung her underwear on my awnings to dry because she did not like the dryer. I came home to find her building wooden displays in my living room and with cans of black spray ready to paint them in my house. She poisoned my dog deliberately and I had to spend $800 at the vet. She took my carved wooden salad spoons from Africa and used them to stir pasta and ruined them. She said that anything I cooked smelled bad and I should eat out. She threw out pieces of silverware, chef’s knives, and china. She threatened to write horrible reviews about me on Airbnb if I did not drive her where she wanted to go and help her with her errands. I called Airbnb for help and they were useless. They said it was my problem. The night she finally left she poured red wine all over expensive new white linens. I found out I could not collect the deposit or the Host Guarantee because I “did not have proof” even though I sent 20 pages of documents and photos. Airbnb requires a police report and this is impossible to obtain in Florida because any damages caused by a “resident” of a home have to be brought to civil court, not the police. That was the last guest I had on Airbnb.

Nothing bad about my guest, but the whole timing was horrible. This Korean Kid (probably 20-22yrs), spoke very little English and his first time in America, he arrives at my house about 8:00pm (Renting just a single bedroom for 4-days. I will add at the time my house was not in the best neighborhood). He arrives and I am not home yet, he lets himself in and probably reads the info sheet I left out... I get back about 9:00pm and the entire area around my house (4-block in all directions) is locked down by the police, they tell me I can't enter but I explain the scenario about a new International Kid living at my house so they escort me through the alley to my house. I go inside the house and he is in his room kind of scared to come out. At this time the SWAT Team is in front of my house, News crews down the street and I find out the brother of the person across the street just beat his GF with a bat, then ran a couple blocks and broke into his brothers house to hide. He is a Felon with a Warrant and they believe he may be armed. The Korean Kid (Forgot his Name) asked me if this is what America is always like as we watch out the window. Anyways 2hrs later they kick in the door, throw flash-bangs inside and go in, 5-minutes later they carry him out Limp, handcuffed and ankle cuffed and lay him on the street while medics look at him. He was very frightened to do anything the whole time he stayed with me because he thought it is very dangerous to go outside!

Only had 1 unpleasant experience with elderly guests. And by no means am I being an ageist.

But they expected me to fix the tiniest problems.

The host should take in the cushions on outdoor chairs at night when it rains (at 3am) so they're not wet the next day

The host should drive us around because we're old

The host had only white towels but I needed black towels. WHAT?? WHY??

The guest that stole everything from our house. They used a fake profile and when we got back from vacation everything of value was gone. Still trying to recover damages two months later from AirBNB.

My husband and I were traveling to NYC for a family emergency; we booked an AirBnb, in an effort to save some money, and ended up finding a nice-looking room in Flushing. My only experiences with AirBnbs up until that point were with larger groups, where we typically had a whole house to ourselves; I was a little nervous about living in a stranger’s guest bedroom. The hostess was very polite over e-mail, and I felt relieved—maybe a room rental was not as bad as I had feared!

We arrived in Flushing at 5 PM on a Saturday. I texted our hostess to let her know that we were on our way to Flushing, and she let us know that she would not be there to meet us, but that her father would be there to meet us.

We stood outside and waited for about 10 minutes, before a man appeared ("the father", we presumed) asking us in gruff mandarin if we had rented a room. Luckily, we both speak mandarin. We said yes, he started walking several doors down, saying that the room that we had booked was not available, and that he had another room. At this point, we arrive in front of a larger apartment complex. He instructed us to leave the key in the unit when we leave in the morning, then handed us off to a second man.

The second guy brings us up to the fourth floor of the second building.

When we arrive on the fourth floor, he led us into the room, which was not as pictured or described in the listing. More concerning was the wet floor. When we asked why, he said it was just mopped--when there was clearly a leak in the roof and major water damage in the ceiling.

Guy 2 brushes it off, then immediately asks us for $20 in cash to get the key. We explain that we don't have cash, and he insists "why worry about $20? Just give me the cash, I'll give it back when you give back the key". We explain that the first guy told us to leave the key in the unit, and guy 2 just repeats that he needs the cash as a deposit. We asked him how we'd give the key and get our cash back, and asked if the hostess’s number was the number to call. He said it wasn't the right number, and started giving us another phone number. We interrupt to say that our reservation was with our hostess, and he was confused. He seemed surprised that the first man had a daughter.

At this point, there was waaaaaaaay too much shady business for our liking, and we decided to leave and find other accommodations.

I was new to AirBNB and my prices was very low. at that time i was 21, and though it was only boys and girls like me, who used it. Signed up pretty much to hang out with people my age, show them the city, have a great time. My first guest was a middle aged woman who was attending a Robbie Williams concert in the neighbor city. She was very sweet and kind when i talked to her through AirBNB, so i let her use my cheap apartment (in which i live also) She didn't "check in" before 3 in the morning, and she was very drunk when she arrived. I had work the following morning, so i really felt like sleeping. When i let her inside she was very noisy. After about 30 minutes she fell asleep. I was waken up suddenly by her trying to "sneak" in my bed(keep in mind she was drunk af) so it was not very smooth. I asked what she was doing, and told her to use the other room. She refused and wanted to cuddle with me - also saying she was willing to pay more. I told her, quite aggressive, to use the other room or leave. At the point she simply got mad at me. After about 15 minutes she bust the door open and comes in the room trying to sell me some of her organic product called vitamin plus or something. I was furious. She kept going for about 1 hour before the almost fell asleep in the door opening. She gave me 5 stars.

When I checked out I got a very angry email from the host saying that I left behind one hair scrunchie (hanging on the closet knob) and an empty beer bottle container. Oh, and I left the bathroom light on. Never mind the fact that we cleaned everything up before leaving. That host was extremely pissed off about the above three things and said she would not give our security deposit back. Luckily I had taken various photos showing how much of a dump the place was and sent the pictures to her saying that her ad was deceptive. That worked - I got my security deposit back.

This experience taught me to never rent an Airbnb room ever again. I rented a place in downtown Taipei that’s close to a train station, high rated with a good price. The moment I arrived I was thrilled, everything seemed nice. The room was a bit smelly but since it was cheap I let it go.

After the first night of my stay my nose started to clog. Staying in a smelly room for hours made my breathing a bit difficult. After the second night of my stay, I was officially sick in the morning. I asked the owner if she had another room I could stay in, but she told me all her rooms were rented and there was nothing she could do.

That night I finally got the idea of checking the air conditioner and it was horrible. The surface seemed clean but if you looked inside it was filled with huge spots of black mold. I could not believe I had been breathing the air into my lungs all along.

I contacted the owner and she was trying to confuse me by saying “we started renting the place out for two months only and we never had any complaints”, but after I confronted her about the air conditioner again and again, she finally caved and said it was provided by the landlord and was ancient.

As I asked her to hire a professional to deep clean the air-con the next day, she refused and said she would only send a domestic helper to come clean the surface only. I refused to keep breathing in ancient black mold into my lungs as it could cause long term lung damage, so I then booked a hostel to stay and moved out immediately.

Guy pooped on my rug!