Hi Wilbur, have you used Airbnb for travel? I just think you’re missing a few important elements of the OP complaint that you may not know if you haven’t used it as a guest. To begin with, a host always has all their listings under their name, so Mami could very easily have checked if there were other rooms in the home if that was a concern for her. Also, she specifically shares a message above that she got from the host that said ‘we often hang out in the yard with guests’, which if she was deeply concerned about a males presence, would have alerted her that it wasn’t just the female there. In short, what she says doesn’t add up. If you absolutely didn’t want to share a bathroom with a male, and hadn’t brought a robe or pajamas that you thought appropriate to be seen in by the opposite gender, wouldn’t that phrase ‘WE hang out’ (not I), make you question if there wasn’t another person in the home, if you hadn’t already? The point is this, if you have such specific needs as a traveler, the onus is on you as a guest to ask specific questions. She is an adult woman traveling with an adult daughter, not a woman alone in a home with babies.
Sure, I agree that hosts magaging the properties but not living at them sounds pretty awful, and I wouldn’t want to stay there, but I also think the reviews would have given some enlightenment on the situation there. In short, I think it was likely quite a deal for the area it was in, which was probably quite a central area in LA. Some people like to stay in those places and are prepared to take a hit on comfort just so they can save. Personally it sounds quite vile to me, but it is suspicious that the OP didn’t share this listing. It is not hers, her review is not there, so she has nothing to lose by sharing the listing so we can see for ourselves. You have to wonder when someone isn’t so forthcoming, what the deal is.
Well, the deal is, she came here wanting to have people agree that Airbnb should pay for her hotel - that’s it, and we know why that can’t work. Pretty soon everyone would only be booking the crap places and staying in hotels for free!
In short, I can agree that the Airbnb sounds quite awful, but I think there would have been pointers both price wise for the area (should have been more expensive), and review wise, and also her communications for her particular needs weren’t asked before booking. It’s a pity that you would need to, but I think when booking a lower end place with only a few short reviews, it’s essential.
Airbnb naturally attracts rotten guests, and rotten hosts. It is essential to use common sense when taking guests and booking an Airbnb. We’ve both learned that. A superhost that claims to know so much about Airbnb shouldn’t have just expected everything to be fine without doing the usual checks. There needs to be some self accountability. This is totally different to a guest arriving that has pretended to be female. That is absolutely creepy, and should be reported. The difference is the host actually did exist and could be reached, she just had a manager on site - although it should be communicated to guests what the set up is (we don’t know if it wasn’t though as we can’t see the listing to see if she is another guest that didn’t read it properly). In your case it was someone pretending to be someone else - THAT is just, all kinds of wrong. Trickery.
