My experiences with Airbnbs have not always been great, especially when my family used them for European vacations in 2013. Don't get me wrong, the apartments we got were great for what we needed them for. The main problem was that we spent hours waiting outside for the Airbnb owner to show up with the key. I guess this was before lockboxes, or at least before Airbnb hosts trusted tenants with lockboxes, so we had to stand outside a London apartment for at least an hour in the cold after being on a plane for the past six hours. We were beyond exhausted. I don't know what star rating my parents gave the rental, but I really hope it wasn't 5 stars. After a couple of tries, we stopped using Airbnbs altogether and went back to hotels. Unless you're in a large group, hotels are much easier.
We're not the only ones who have had bad experiences with Airbnbs. I've seen a lot of viral posts lately of people complaining about their Airbnbs only leaving one roll of toilet paper for tenants, which I find absurd. If you're going to supply linens, soap, towels, and other household items, why can't you supply toilet paper? If you're running a regular long-term apartment rental, it makes sense not to supply toilet paper. But a vacation rental? Who wants to take time out of their vacation to drive to Walmart and buy toilet paper? Not me!
The other thing that's so infuriating about Airbnbs is the cleaning lists. I understand stripping the linens off the beds and not leaving the place a total pigsty. But why should tenants have to clean the apartment when a cleaning fee is already included on their bill? I'm okay with tipping the housekeeper, but that's only if I am not also forced to be the housekeeper, lest I get fined even more. Like most landlords, many Airbnb owners don't want to do any work on their property. They don't want to make sure it's presentable and suitable for the next tenant. So what do they do? They blame everything wrong with their property on the previous tenant and refuse to fix the problems themselves.
The Airbnb owner in this story is not the brightest crayon in the box. She has doubled down on the idea that she's right and her tenants are wrong, despite everyone and their mother telling her otherwise.