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Wow... You guys seem to have had horrible experiences. May I ask what area you are staying in? I've stayed at Airbnb places in the Williamsburg, Brooklyn area

Wow... You guys seem to have had horrible experiences. May I ask what area you are staying in? I've stayed at Airbnb places in the Williamsburg, Brooklyn area about ten times now over the past couple years and my experience has been satisfactory every time. And I've stayed in the entire range of Airbnb, from very nice places where I'm basically a roommate for a month and eating meals with my host, etc, to places where I rarely see the owner and it is obvious they don't live there but just rent it out, to an old loft that was subdivided into small rooms and being rented out to four different Airbnb guests at once. The subdivided loft one was probably the most illegal one I ever stayed in because it certainly wasn't up to code but it was still very cool and the other guests were polite and quiet. The only time I've ever had a bad experience with AirBNB was once when staying at a place in San Francisco which turned out to be very dirty due to the owner being out of country and just having his next door neighbor give the keys to short term renters. The rating system also makes it so that taking any action would probably result in an open flame war so that I'd probably get rejected by future landlords. I call bullshit on this. Leaving a bad review on a host is not going to get you rejected by future landlords unless those landlords are also running dumps and they don't want to get bad reviews, and in that case you probably don't want to stay there anyway. The key is to find places that have lots of reviews and read them. If you see anything amiss don't stay there. If you stick to well reviewed places you will have a great experience. If you choose to break new ground and try completely new unreviewed places (which I have done from time to time) it is more of a gamble. You can also get some great experiences that way as well, because in general newer, unreviewed places don't charge as much so as to attract people, while the older very well reviewed and run places will charge nearly double in most cases compared to brand new places. Basically, you get what you pay for, as with many other things in life.

laxatives 13y ago
Berkeley, CA. The reviews were mostly positive, except for one negative that did result in a flame war. I'm not sure what changed, but I heard from another one of the tenants that AirBNB was going to send a representative to check the place out after a number of complaints, but it sounds like the guy never came.
potatolicious 13y ago
> "The key is to find places that have lots of reviews and read them." I've done this, I'm rather risk-averse with it comes to AirBnbs, and I've still run into bad places. I've had two bad experiences in this regard: - One was a nice apartment, but I found out the landlord (the word "host" is both disingenuous and inaccurate for AirBnb and I despise the attempt at newspeak) lived full time in the room I was renting. She was old and clearly needed the supplemental income, and I displaced her onto the couch. This was not made at all clear beforehand, and her place had many positive reviews. I did not sign up to displace an elderly person from her own bed, nor did I sign up to deny someone their only source of badly needed income. I suspect a lot of the positive reviews came from this. There was nothing otherwise wrong with the apartment. - In the other one the bedroom was nice, at a good location, but the landlord had a dog that pissed and shat all over the common areas. Her place also had no shortage of good reviews (over a dozen at the time IIRC). In this case also it was clear she needed the supplemental income, and she was so damn apologetic about it and spent so much time trying to clean up after the dog that it was hard to write a negative review. I suspect, again, that this is why the place was so positively rated. AirBnb's system is far from foolproof. In both cases I abstained from reviewing the places - a move I'm still unsure about. One thing I am sure about is that I resent being put in a position where I have such profound influence on someone's (badly needed) livelihood.
- NathanKP 13y ago
  I guess the issue then is that its hard to balance trying to be nice to the person and being honest in your review. Personally I don't have a problem calling out issues in my reviews because I feel like I owe it to future people who want to find a place on Airbnb to leave accurate reviews. But yeah I agree that its not easy to leave a bad review sometimes. Usually there is a way you can word it that isn't mean or bad, but which lets future potential guests know what to expect.
  - potatolicious 13y ago
    > "Usually there is a way you can word it that isn't mean or bad, but which lets future potential guests know what to expect." Sure, and I did actually go back afterwards to see if I was just too thick to read between the lines. Couldn't find anything definitive, maybe some oblique hints. Either way though, judiciously worded faux-reviews seem like they make the problem worse, not better. It forces the system into a state where only the power users know WTF is actually going on, and for everyone else the information is pure noise. You spend less time reading what's on the page and more time reading what isn't. Funnily enough, this reminds me of the rental market in NYC, where it's all between-the-lines parsing and the system has invented a whole 'nother vocabulary to avoid saying what's what (see: "flex" 2-bedrooms). This is one of the fundamental problems. I have no compunctions about leaving a hotel a bad review, because I know that they can afford it in the short run, and that as a stimulus mechanism for them to correct themselves, it's likely to work. In this case though, I don't think these landlords could afford a bad review, and they are not in a position where a bad review is a correcting mechanism - it's more likely to sink them entirely instead.
wehadfun 13y ago
Wrong, if you write a bunch of trash reviews only dumps would allow you. Anyone host that has spend lots of $$$ is not going to want some brat to come and there and write some BS because they found a hair in a carpet somewhere.
- NathanKP 13y ago
  There is definitely a difference between writing nitpick reviews and writing negative reviews of a place based on legitimate issues. If you leave negative reviews complaining about finding a hair on the carpet then yeah good hosts probably aren't going to want someone who is that much of a nitpick. But if you leave a review complaining about real issues like no towels, dirty sheets or bathroom then that's not going to hurt your chances with good hosts. Believe me I've left a bad review based on an Airbnb place being dirty, and I've left a neutrally toned review that complained about some minor issues like a slightly dangerous ladder leading up to the loft bed at once place I stayed at, and I don't have any issues getting great Airbnb places.

laxatives 13y ago

Berkeley, CA. The reviews were mostly positive, except for one negative that did result in a flame war. I'm not sure what changed, but I heard from another one of the tenants that AirBNB was going to send a representative to check the place out after a number of complaints, but it sounds like the guy never came.

potatolicious 13y ago

> "The key is to find places that have lots of reviews and read them." I've done this, I'm rather risk-averse with it comes to AirBnbs, and I've still run into bad places. I've had two bad experiences in this regard: - One was a nice apartment, but I found out the landlord (the word "host" is both disingenuous and inaccurate for AirBnb and I despise the attempt at newspeak) lived full time in the room I was renting. She was old and clearly needed the supplemental income, and I displaced her onto the couch. This was not made at all clear beforehand, and her place had many positive reviews. I did not sign up to displace an elderly person from her own bed, nor did I sign up to deny someone their only source of badly needed income. I suspect a lot of the positive reviews came from this. There was nothing otherwise wrong with the apartment. - In the other one the bedroom was nice, at a good location, but the landlord had a dog that pissed and shat all over the common areas. Her place also had no shortage of good reviews (over a dozen at the time IIRC). In this case also it was clear she needed the supplemental income, and she was so damn apologetic about it and spent so much time trying to clean up after the dog that it was hard to write a negative review. I suspect, again, that this is why the place was so positively rated. AirBnb's system is far from foolproof. In both cases I abstained from reviewing the places - a move I'm still unsure about. One thing I am sure about is that I resent being put in a position where I have such profound influence on someone's (badly needed) livelihood.

NathanKP 13y ago
I guess the issue then is that its hard to balance trying to be nice to the person and being honest in your review. Personally I don't have a problem calling out issues in my reviews because I feel like I owe it to future people who want to find a place on Airbnb to leave accurate reviews. But yeah I agree that its not easy to leave a bad review sometimes. Usually there is a way you can word it that isn't mean or bad, but which lets future potential guests know what to expect.
- potatolicious 13y ago
  > "Usually there is a way you can word it that isn't mean or bad, but which lets future potential guests know what to expect." Sure, and I did actually go back afterwards to see if I was just too thick to read between the lines. Couldn't find anything definitive, maybe some oblique hints. Either way though, judiciously worded faux-reviews seem like they make the problem worse, not better. It forces the system into a state where only the power users know WTF is actually going on, and for everyone else the information is pure noise. You spend less time reading what's on the page and more time reading what isn't. Funnily enough, this reminds me of the rental market in NYC, where it's all between-the-lines parsing and the system has invented a whole 'nother vocabulary to avoid saying what's what (see: "flex" 2-bedrooms). This is one of the fundamental problems. I have no compunctions about leaving a hotel a bad review, because I know that they can afford it in the short run, and that as a stimulus mechanism for them to correct themselves, it's likely to work. In this case though, I don't think these landlords could afford a bad review, and they are not in a position where a bad review is a correcting mechanism - it's more likely to sink them entirely instead.

wehadfun 13y ago

Wrong, if you write a bunch of trash reviews only dumps would allow you. Anyone host that has spend lots of $$$ is not going to want some brat to come and there and write some BS because they found a hair in a carpet somewhere.

NathanKP 13y ago
There is definitely a difference between writing nitpick reviews and writing negative reviews of a place based on legitimate issues. If you leave negative reviews complaining about finding a hair on the carpet then yeah good hosts probably aren't going to want someone who is that much of a nitpick. But if you leave a review complaining about real issues like no towels, dirty sheets or bathroom then that's not going to hurt your chances with good hosts. Believe me I've left a bad review based on an Airbnb place being dirty, and I've left a neutrally toned review that complained about some minor issues like a slightly dangerous ladder leading up to the loft bed at once place I stayed at, and I don't have any issues getting great Airbnb places.