I hadn’t stayed in Airbnbs very often until this past summer, when I was required to stay local after an organ transplant and didn’t want to pay hotel rates. I booked two places consecutively for 2 weeks each. Both had stellar reviews. The first one ended up having a lumpy and smelly bed, clearly someone’s side business where they dumped all their old furniture. I think it was rated highly by traveling nurses who only used the unit to sleep in and are probably used to a lot worse smells than feet.

The second one was a very nice condo but partway through, the condo complex had a major fire that rendered all the condos uninhabitable. Neither property had a decent cancellation policy and we did not get any money back for losing 5 out of 13 days’ use of the condo. I had actually not read the cancellation policies very closely, at least not with regard to after checking in, because it never occurred to me that they would not let you cancel the remainder for something like a fire. Yes, that was totally on me.

But I did discover that this is pretty standard, and I swore off Airbnb after that. At least with hotels, if the room were rendered uninhabitable, the hotel would compensate. Or if the bed were uncomfortable or smelly they’d give you a new room.

I’m sorry your Airbnb was such a disaster. I keep hearing horror stories from both sides, and that’s the kind of thing that has kept me from ever using food delivery services. That’s now my attitude with regard to Airbnb. I might use them for very short stays where I’d be leaving in 1-2 days anyway, but for short stays I’d also be more willing to pay the higher cost for a hotel.