| Re: Hi. We rented a room through Airbnb for a vacation to Manhattan, and ended up living in an awful basement room with a non-functioning window and no way to escape in case of fire. There is a window in the room, but it is underground and right outside it is a wall, the window is also barred and it would be impossible for us to get anywhere in case of a fire. We have reported it to AirBnb, and requested a refund, but are not feeling like we are listened to, and instead being passed around from case worker to case worker who is sending insignificant emails to us, saying that if there's nothing else they can help us with they will close the case. We are on the third caseworker now.. There was absolutley no daylight whatsoever entering the room, and we couldn't tell if it was day or night while we were down there. The air quality was so bad that my partner got a dry cough while we were there, I had blood marks when sneezing and we both had headaches. The only way to enter the room is through a tiny and extremely narrow spiral staircase made of metal. We could barely get our suitcase down because it's so small and tight - and being made of metal also worried us, as a fire would make the only exit very hot. In addition, the room was moldy, our duve was full of mold, water leaked from the ceiling (the mold was just painted over, and we even wondered if the building structure was still good enough) and there were silver fish bugs in the room. The host stored the keys to all the 4 Airbnb rooms in the unit in an open box outside the building, so any stranger from the street could just lock themselves into the apartment. We're still trying to get Airbnb to understand the seriousness of this issue, but while this complaint has lasted for weeks without any progress now, and the listing is still allowed to be up and new guests are renting the room, we feel we have to go directly to you to report it. Attached are two of the complaints sent to the host and Airbnb, and photos |
