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My Experience With a Dirty Airbnb

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You get to your Airbnb and it’s dirty, what do you do? Here is a recap of my experience with a dirty Airbnb near Boston, Massachusetts.

Note: No photos included on this page are associated with the Airbnb in any way. Additionally, I will not disclose the exact location.

Booking the Airbnb

I took a trip to New England in October 2021 to explore Boston and see fall foliage. The first leg of the trip was three nights in Boston area, and with four adults and a rental car I thought an Airbnb would be ideal.

The home I chose had good reviews, multiple bedrooms, free parking, and people raved about the location. The host did describe the home as quirky and the appliances as not modern, but that was fine with us. The host always responded to my inquires leading up to the trip quickly. Everything seemed great!

Arriving at the Airbnb

For the first two days it was just my mom and I, before my sister and her husband met up with us. We flew from California to Boston, so despite taking a morning flight, we arrived in Boston as the sun was going down. We took an Uber to the Airbnb where the host was there waiting and checked us in.

As we entered the home, the quirkiness was apparent but not too surprising. It was once the host left and we began exploring the house that we realized it was dirty!

The Issue with the home

The sheets and towels all appeared clean, however the home was dirty overall. There was mold in the shower, expired sauces all over the counter, sticky liquid spilled in the fridge, used baking sheets left in the oven, just to name a few. If this were a college student’s home you might you might think they aren’t the cleanest person and brush it off, but this was an Airbnb I was paying for!

I got back on Airbnb’s website and looked at the reviews for the home again. I once again saw many great reviews, however as I dug deeper I saw multiple reviews that did mention the home was dirty.

So now the question is, what do we do? It’s my mom and I in a new city at night, it’s raining, and most Boston accommodations are very expensive. It was late so we opted to stay the first night and call Airbnb customer support in the morning.

Contacting Airbnb Support

I read Airbnb’s Guest Refund Policy which has a section for unclean homes. I called Airbnb Support 12 hours after checking in (still within the 24 hour range) and explained that the home was dirty and asked what my options were. They said they could not guarantee a refund and that I needed to reach out to the host about the problem. I wanted to avoid this while myself and my things were in the home in case the host retaliated in some way (the host seemed nice but was still a stranger). The home needed professional cleaning, so this was not going to be resolved easily.

The other option Airbnb support gave me was to start a case with them by sending photo evidence and they would reach out to the host. Again, I wanted to avoid this while I was still in the home. Airbnb reassured me they would not reach out to the host unless I started a claim.

After all this, we opted to stay in the Airbnb for many reasons – a refund was not guaranteed, Boston is expensive, we’d be out most of the time, and we didn’t feel our health was in immediate danger. However, we did not feel comfortable using many of the appliances in the home which were supposed to be included amenities.

Filing a Claim After My Stay

Even though I opted to stay in the Airbnb, I was not willing to let this go and wanted at least a partial refund. Once I was back home, I reached out to Airbnb support through their Airbnb Bot/ Chat feature and they connected me with a Community Expert. They told me to start a claim through the Resolution Center which you get to on the reservation details of the property.

From there it asked for:
-Amount I wanted refunded
-Photo/ video evidence
-Description of the problem

The host has 72 hours to accept or reject the claim, and if they reject or do not respond, you can request that Airbnb intervenes.

I asked for half of the total cost back, and the host responded within 12 hours saying they would refund half of the cost without fees. This was still a substantial amount, so I accepted and the money was back in my account within 2 days.

My Take Aways

  • Dig deeper in Airbnb reviews, even if it means going back years. In hindsight, all of the evidence of this Airbnb being dirty was there.
  • People have different standards of cleanliness. Some people actually wrote in recent reviews for the home that it was clean.
  • Airbnb’s always prefers that you try and work out an issue with the host before they intervene.
  • Airbnb has decent customer support – they were willing to intervene and force a payment if the host didn’t reply to my refund request.
    • I’ve heard that Vrbo does not offer such support.

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