The heyday of Airbnb is definitely long since passed. Where you could once find genuine deals and save some money compared to staying at a hotel, now it’s become such a lucrative business that everyone wants a piece, resulting in the site being flooded with endless low-quality, yet somehow still expensive, stays.



Author M.L. Rio found this out firsthand recently when she arrived at the Airbnb she had booked for a one-month stay. As she explained in a follow-up post on Substack, she’s currently between houses and tried to find accommodation in a specific area so she could be near the many doctors she has to see following a serious injury back in July.


Right out the gate, the entryway was in dire need of a good vacuuming, which didn’t make a good first impression on Rio. The next day, after returning to the Airbnb, Rio found that one of the screws was missing from the deadbolt, which quickly veered this into horror movie territory.



Rio’s thread details a whole host of other problems with the place — cockroaches, rodents, leaky ceilings, an incredibly worn bathroom in need of a good deep clean, to name a few. Adding insult to injury, Airbnb was incredibly unhelpful, bouncing Rio back and forth between multiple different customer service reps who apparently don’t communicate with each other.




Since she just kept being given the runaround from Airbnb, including telling her she could have a refund if she left within two hours and then refusing to issue a refund, Rio decided to leave, and her partner picked her up and drove her home. After the thread went viral, Airbnb finally authorized Rio’s refund, putting an end to this tale of woe.



But not quite. One stranger who saw Rio’s thread and happens to be an HVAC technician pointed out that the photo she posted of the hot water tank (and rodent repellent) shows that the chimney is disconnected from the flue collar. If you are, like me, not an HVAC technician and don’t know what that means, apparently it means the tank is constantly dumping gasses into the home rather than out through the chimney, which could lead to things like carbon monoxide poisoning.


How fun — an Airbnb that kills you in your sleep! What will they think of next?