Airbnb rating | Imamother

amother

Mon, May 16 2022, 4:32 pm

My husband and I booked a 1 night romantic getaway in another part of our city a few months ago. It was a 3rd floor of a townhouse. It had hundreds of good reviews.
Unfortunately, we had a family emergency 48 hours before our reservation-a close family member was possibly going to die and actually died a few days after. It was too late to cancel per the owners rules (totally understood-we knew the policy when we reserved).

I reached out to him at the time and told him what happened. He was nice enough to offer us a credit to come a different time. The new date was actually a lower rate than the original reservation so we got about $20 off (original total was around $150, we only paid $130 for the new night).

We looked at our calendar and booked a random day that he was open. It was last night.

We made arrangements for our kids, jobs, and other responsibilities and arrived.

The room was as described. BUT it was incredibly hot. It was in the mid 70's outside, not crazy hot, but the room was really hot and stuffy. We had a lot of back and forth with the owner as he asked us to adjust the thermostat etc. Eventually, another guest at the house who is an HVAC tech looked at the AC unit and said something is wrong with it and it's not working at all. The room had a fan which didn't do much. The owner suggested we open a window or 2. We opened a window which had no screen. Eventually, we closed it because I was nervous about 1) bugs and 2) robbers.

He felt bad and offered us a refund to go home. He also reached out to a colleague who owned another AirBnb to see if they had any openings but they didn't.

We told him we would stay anyway because too much planning had happened to make this work. I asked him via text if he would give a partial refund or credit and he texted back "of course."

The night was hot. Not unbearable because the fan helped a bit, but it was really not up to any standards I would have expected.

This morning felt a tiny bit better but still hot. He came to inspect things and said that the AC seems to be working again and he is sorry about last night. He said the rest of the house now feels cool and it's too bad we got the top floor. He didn't say a thing about a refund or credit.

I'm wondering whether 1) I should reach out again and ask for money back or 2) leave a negative review or 3) do nothing. Really, it's not his fault that his AC unit happened to be broken the night we were there. He called in a repairman to come by today but it was too late to help us. Also, he was doing us a chessed to even let us come at a different time since we cancelled the original reservation. We also got $20 off the original price.

He happens to be a super nice person and aside from the heat, it was a really great rental.