u/PaintingDonkey

TLDR; found bed bugs in my Airbnb. Received an initial guarantee for remediations in writing (full hotel reimbursement, transportation to hotel reimbursement, refund of current and future stays, clothing treatment reimbursement). Then Airbnb tried to pull a fast one and basically not compensate (only 30% of original stay for one night in hotel, but not allowed to stay in AirBnbs for next 3 nights due to spread of bed bugs). I fought tooth and nail over the course of 12+ hours, and finally they agreed to honor what they originally promised.

If you find yourself in this situation, document EVERYTHING, get pictures and videos, send them to AirBnb, get Airbnb to agree in writing to their promises, and do NOT leave the current location with the bed bugs until you have these promises in writing.

Long story:

I was staying in an AirBnB earlier this week in southern France and discovered bed bugs at the beginning of my stay. Below I recount my story so others are aware of how to manage something like this, and what their options are.

I am traveling for an elders birthday in my family. There are five of us, one infant included. Our flight to southern France was delayed so we checked into our Airbnb (1 night) around 1am. The Airbnb came highly rated and was seemingly nice enough. It was not over the top, but also had everything we needed and seemed quite clean.

we got the baby down to sleep and then took a bit to decompress, unpack, and do laundry. One of the elders stayed up for about 20 minutes on the couch reading. When everyone else went to sleep, I went and sat on the couch as I planned the rest of our trip and waited for the wash to be done so I could hang up clothes to dry. After ~10 minutes on the couch, I went to the bathroom to brush my teeth. All other members of the family had gone to sleep at this point. When I got to the bathroom I was drying my hands after washing them and noticed something crawling on my shirt. I smacked it and killed it and it fell to the ground. It looked like a tiny little cockroach. I thought that was weird and just as I was going to keep drying my hands off, I noticed another. This time, I brushed the bug off onto the floor. Once on the floor, still alive, I examined more closely and knew immediately it was a bed bug. I did a quick google search to compare pictures just to be sure. Dead on. Mature adult bed bugs.

I captured the bug in a glass and then went to the couch to see if I could spot more. Immediately I saw one crawling across the side of the couch on which I had been sitting. This happened to be the same spot my elder was sitting not 45 minutes prior.

I woke up my wife to let her know. At this point we considered our options. It was 2:30am and we were halfway around the world in a place where we didn’t speak the language and where the entire city was already shut down. We decided to let the elders and baby sleep. However through our discussions the elders heard, awoke, and joined.

What I describe next recounts my experience with the hosts and Airbnb customer support:

I chose not to tell the host immediately. In almost all of these cases, it’s not the hosts fault. They don’t intend there to be bugs, nor do they often clean the home themselves so they aren’t aware.

Next, I contacted Airbnb and did so over the phone via call. The first CS rep basically told me there was nothing they could do. He was also exceptionally rude. At this point I turned to this forum to understand my options. It appeared Airbnb policy was a refund of the current stay + up to 30% of the original stay’s nightly value applied to a new stay for the remainder of the nights. This wasn’t good enough and I was only in this airbnb for one night. I asked to be escalated.

3:00am. I was escalated to a senior support manager (not the exact terminology but someone senior) who at first provided me the following options:
- cover transportation to hotel
- cover cost of hotel for the night
- cover cost to “treat” clothing, or I could simply dispose of my clothing or put it in a plastic bag or bin, and seal it for “up to one year”

I was told I could not stay in an Airbnb for the next 3 days because they don’t want spread. Instead they told me to stay in a hotel. This was laughable. For the same group of people it would be easily double or triple the price to stay in a hotel because we would need 2 rooms, one big enough for an infant, and a baby cot. Further, this was simply Airbnb just shifting the problem to be someone else’s. I understand the capitalist motive, but they weren’t actually solving any problem here. Just making it the hotel’s instead.

I expressed my frustration about Airbnbs unwillingness to do anything for our clothing, knowing that if we didn’t actually treat it, the bugs would travel with us. I notified them that between the five of us, we had thousands of dollars worth of clothes that were likely damaged/exposed. At this point they asked me for receipts of my clothing. Completely unrealistic. So we did some research on what to do.

Bed bugs are killed by heat. We were fortunate to have a clothes dryer in the current bnb, in Europe, which is somewhat rare. We immediately started running cycles of clothing in the dyer at high heat for 20 minutes. Getting above 60 degrees will for 20 min kills the bug and any larvae. We decided we would do this for all clothing, inspect all suitcases, and not sit on or lay on any fabric. It was going to be an all nighter. We decided to let the baby sleep. Worst case scenario is that she got bit a few times but we could heat treat all of her clothing in the morning and give her a bath before leaving. She needed to sleep.

3:30am. I was disconnected from my senior support rep at this time. I spent the next 2 hours speaking to 7 reps, each of whom said they couldn’t escalate me, but promised me that my case rep would return my call.

5:30am. My case rep calls me back. Over the prior 2 hours I had taken the time to think through exactly what I needed.
- full refund of the current nights stay
- transport to the hotel, which was in the next city on our itinerary, and would be meaningfully expensive, and also as-hoc since we weren’t planning on leaving right away but needed a place to sleep as it had now been 24 hours with no sleep
- the next 3 nights in a hotel, fully reimbursed by Airbnb. They would not allow us to stay in Airbnb, which I had already booked weeks prior, so I’d need to cancel and find a last minute hotel.
- refunds for the next 3 nights of Airbnb stays since we weren’t allowed to stay in them.
- reimbursement for my clothing that I’d likely have to throw out due to bed bugs. They made it clear earlier they wouldn’t do this, only cover the cost of treating, so I backed off this and that’s why we ran every article of clothing through the dryer.

The rep agreed to points 1-4 but just verbally. I needed this in writing. I spent the next hour working through exactly what I needed the message to say with the rep. Finally, we got it right, and I received it in writing. I booked the hotel and the transportation, got the baby up. We left around 9am.

1pm. After arriving to the hotel and checking in, I get a message from Airbnb saying the case had been taken over by a senior support manager, the highest tier of support and they would handle it directly. They proceeded to tell me what I’ve seen on Reddit before. They would refund the bedbug night and cover only up to 30% of the prior night’s stay for the next night. This was their “policy” and they wouldn’t not waiver. Unbelievable. I spent the next 5! hours going back and forth with the rep on this matter.

I had written proof of guarantee by the company that they would cover my next 3 nights in full, which were in fact much more than an Airbnb because I had to book 2 hotel rooms last minute. I sent pictures of the bites on my 11 month old daughter, resent pictures of the bed bugs found in the unit, explained I had not slept in 30+ hours. They didn’t care. Some BS policy which they had already overruled in writing was what they leaned on. All they cared about was the bottom line. Not surprising. They kept saying this was their policy and they could do nothing else. Total BS.

I wasn’t going to let it go. I had gotten in writing everything they would do because I knew from others in this forum they pulled this BS ex-post every time. Ultimately, they were willing to prioritize money above the health and safety of their customers, particularly an infant, which is backwards, but they also don’t care if they lose a customer like me and keep the rest. I still didn’t let it go and started to research how’d I’d involve counsel. I had a written guarantee. I kept leveraging this.

Finally, after 12+ hours total of back and the unfortunate need to bring in the topic of infant health and safety and my aging elders being up for ~30 hours straight, they capitulated. I’m convinced I was going back and forth with AI the entire time because at the end, the response literally pivoted from this is our policy and we’re concluded and final, to we’re so sorry and yes we’ll honor what we said. If it is AI, I must’ve just said the word or phrase that sent the system down a new track, or it’s analysis finally concluded they were spending more money on me and had higher risk of bad PR from the minors/elders than keeping another $1k was worth.

Aside: Brian Chesky is a fucking slime ball and DFAG about anything but money. His platform is fucked. They compete only on price now. The network effect and massive TAM enabled their initial high growth, but the fact that they’re trying to pivot/add experiences is a clear indicator that core platform growth is muted and they have nowhere else to turn. Don’t give this platform your money if you don’t have to.

6 out of 10 and that’s probably a bit generous. Not to be harsh, but it’s no better than mall Sbarro, which is average imo. Hate to see it cuz I had high hopes. But I give this place 18 months.

Would pay $3.50 a slice all day. But at full price, not for this Boulderite. 🤷‍♂️