AirBNB Nightmare
105 Wagner Way, Tobyhanna Township,
PA 18347
So every
year we take a vacation of some kind with the family and our dogs. This year we
were to stay at a nice place in New York State. I was really looking forward to
it.
As luck
would have it the renter contacted my son the day before our vacation was to
start, telling him the place was double booked. This has never happened to us
before but this renter admitted it’s happened to him before…..which mean he’s
either an idiot that makes stupid mistakes at other people’s expense or he’s an
idiot that just doesn’t know what he’s doing. In any case we will not be
renting from him again.
We now had
the option to all collectively change our vacation time (not possible) or stay
home (come on!) or try to book another place at the last minute. We went for
option 3 as the little kids were looking forward to this vacation and frankly
so was I.
My son
booked a place in Tobyhanna, PA. You may
be thinking that’s a weird town name….it made me think of our family cat Toby
from when I was a kid. But it did turn out to be a real town. On line the house
looked nice; listed all the things we would need including air conditioning
which you may have noticed is essential this summer as we are experiencing 90
plus days with high humidity for weeks on end this year.
I packed my
stuff; got the dog in the car and set off on my way to vacation!!
I got to the
house first. I usually do as I don’t make any stops if I can help it or very
few if I must stop. This time I did have to stop to use the bathroom at one of
the rest areas. I was really nervous about it because Gracie was with me. I
can’t just leave her in the car with the heat the way it is…..someone would
smash a window to save her and I’d be arrested for sure. I’ve never had this
issue before so I was very much undecided about what to do with her. Plus she’s
a nervous dog to begin with….anything new happening to her and she’s very
likely to freak out. In the end I
decided I’d walk her around at the rest area to let her pee and then I just
took her in the ladies room stall with me! She did not understand what was
going on and did her best to make sure I knew that……she had to be dragged into
the stall with me. I used one of the handicap stalls and I was totally
justified in doing so. It is definitely a handicap to have to drag an English
Pointer into a stall with you; hang on to her leash the whole time; prevent her
from going back under the stall door to get away; all while trying to pee on
the toilet!
That done, I
met a young lady on my way out. She was surprised to see the dog but seemed to
like Gracie and Gracie likes everyone so it was fine. I told her I couldn’t
very well leave the dog in a hot car so I just brought her with me. She seemed
to think it made sense so that made me feel better. And we were back on the
road again real quick.
So as I
said, I got to the house first. I let Gracie out to sniff and pee and do doggie
things that are fun after a long car ride. As I got up to the door I found a
notice on the door handle. It was a shut off notice. This is not a good thing.
The notice
was dated 7/19 and the date was 7/22 when I got there. This means to me that no
one has seen this notice except me. Now I’m getting nervous….
I tried the
code to open the door. It did not work. I took a quick walk around the property
and I was not pleased by what I was seeing. The driveway was in such a state
that it appeared to be reverting back to a wild state. The decorative wishing
well and bench next to it in the front yard were both covered in years’ worth
of moss and debris. The ‘lawn’ had not been mowed in a very long time. The
grass and weeds were so tall they had given up trying to be upright and were
laying down for the most part. The bushes along the front of the house were all
over grown as well.
I got back
in my car and called my son telling him I could not get in the door. They were
about 15 mins out from the place and it was beginning to down pour so I just
waiting in my car with Gracie. When they arrived Justin tried to get in the
door….didn’t work for him either. He called AirBNB and was told by someone who
was supposedly a maintenance man that we could get in by a side door. (this
proved to be true as the door was not locked and the inner screen door with it
was not even in its track as it was the wrong size to even fit that door way.
The notice
on the door indicated that someone had not been paying their electricity bill
and the place was about to be shut off. This is NOT the type of notice you want
to see when arriving at a rental after a 3 ½ hour drive to get there. The
adventure just got worse from there.
Once we were
all inside with all our stuff (what option did we have but to go inside right?)
it became obvious that many things advertised about the place were just not
true at all! The first problem was that the hot was extremely hot. There was no
air conditioning in the house; no central air; no window units, nothing. In
fact the type of windows the house had made it impossible to put window units
in the windows at all. All it had was a ceiling fan in the dining area that
although it was on full force the entire time it did little other than move hot
air around.
The third
bedroom (that was to be mine) was in the basement area. The door was locked but
somehow Kasey got it open and actually made the bed up as well. She should not
have bothered. It was actually must cooler down there but the overwhelming
stench of mold was so strong down there I could not sleep down there and
instead I had to sleep on the couch, in the heat upstairs in the living room. Upon
investigating the lower level further it was obvious that there had been some
kind of water problem down there at some point because the drywall was all
water damaged and the baseboards had been removed but nothing had been done
from that point. I strongly suspect there is mold behind that drywall from the
water damage. The stench was unbelievable!
Let me list
for you here some of the other problems we found with the house immediately.
There was no garbage bin; none of any kind in the house (we had an infant with
us and dirty diapers that needed to be in a bin….none there. We ended up using one
of our coolers with a garbage bag in it (we bought our own garbage bags as
there were none of those in the house anywhere either) because without a
garbage bin we needed something with a lid for smell and to keep the dogs out.
There were no cleaning supplies at all other than a small half bottle of Dawn
dish soap and a broom….no dust pan mind you….just a broom; no vacuum. There was
almost nothing in the kitchen….the same kitchen that was advertised as having
condiments and general cooking supplies….didn’t even have salt; pepper and
cooking oil.
The bathroom
had exactly 4 towels and 1 washcloth; no soap; no shampoo or conditioner; no
garbage bin or bags; 2 rolls of toilet paper; no tub mat in the tub to prevent
falls; nothing that normal rentals make available for their renters. The kids
were bathed to cool them off. Mya ended up falling backwards while sitting in
the tub and bumped her head pretty good…..because there was no mat in there to
prevent it. The worse part of a vacation is having to drive to a store to buy
essentials that are not provided with the rental and that’s exactly what had to
be done as soon as we got there.
An email was
written by the three of us that night and sent to AirBNB about the terrible
condition of this house. More about their incompetency later….
I took the
dog for a walk and found the ‘Pilgrim Lake’ just down the road a short way.
This is no lake….it’s a swamp. I have no idea why it’s called a lake…it simply
is not a lake unless it’s a lake for frogs; tadpoles; snakes and other wildlife
that enjoys swamps. I never made it to the actually lake that was nearby as I
simply couldn’t handle the heat and ended up leaving early.
That night
was terrible for me; between the excessive heat; Zack’s little toenails
clicking all over the house (Justin’s dog; he was probably too hot to settle
down too); Gracie moving around trying to get comfortable; the hardness of the
couch; lack of a pillow….the night just wore on with me awake thru most of it.
I resolved to leave in the morning. I didn’t want to leave the family but this
was a nightmare that I was just not prepared for and not able to handle.
I left in
the morning and had a horrendous 4 ½ hour drive home. It was Saturday and for
some reason the traffic was crazy the whole way home. I didn’t want to stop; I
just wanted to get home. In fact I just kept chanting to myself I just want to go
home; I just want to go home. My poor dog spent more time in the car than she
did anywhere else.
The rest of
the family stayed (not wanting to do that long drive with 3 kids and a dog
again so soon) and did their best to enjoy their time there. They did visit fun
places with the kids. The area is nice. It’s just the house that was so
horrible.
To make
things even worse when they got back home the ‘owner’ of the place had sent a
bill for $300 to AirBNB that they wanted my son to pay. According to this owner
(who has obviously not been to this nightmare home for a long time or maybe
never) the side porch door was broken (yes, before we even got there moron!
Your maintenance man told us how to get in that way); the screen door was
broken (no, it was fine it just is the wrong size for that door idiot!); the
kitchen stool was broken (a miracle or an act of incredible strength must have
happened for this one because the chairs were metal and impossible to break
even if we wanted to); the comforter in the mold room had to be replaced (they
accused Zack of having peed on it and that it had to be replaced because of
that. First of all Zack is far too small a dog to get up on that bed and even
if anyone had peed on it there is no reason why it can’t be WASHED!); lastly
they complained they needed to do a Deep Cleaning because we did not clean up
well enough and there was dog hair in the house. Now that is just plain
ridiculous. First of all yes, my dog sheds and I make a habit of vacuuming
whenever I bring her anywhere to stay. I have two issues here….first of all
there WAS NO VACUUM so I couldn’t clean up her hair and second of all since
when is vacuuming considered Deep Cleaning???!!
Obviously
the person renting this place is a shyster of the lowest order. We know that
now. Unfortunately AirBNB did not handle the situation correctly or promptly
and let it drag out far too long. Their customer service is a joke and after
assuring us that they would handle the bill and we should just ignore it they
allowed my son and his family to be continually harassed by the owner about
paying the extended bill for basically lies they made up. I do believe that the
owner made up issues to try to counter act the complaints we made and to obtain
free money. It was very obvious (after we got there) that this house had been
severely neglected for quite some time. Someone had bought it and was trying to
make a quick buck by renting it without first having brought it up to basic
living standards. They even went so far as to actually lie about the amenities
in the house to capture unsuspecting people such as ourselves.
I am
currently looking for further information so I can make a formal complaint to
someone in authority in that town about that owner and AirBNB for not handling
the situation properly and not screening the home/owner better than they did on
this house. No one should have to go through what my family and I went through;
have a vacation time ruined and then be harassed and lied to afterward.
Unfortunately
I didn’t take pictures of all the issues with the house and I have not listed
them all here either. Let this be a lesson to us all….it certainly is a lesson
learned by my family. Always read the reviews about the rental you are looking
to rent; also read reviews (if available) about the person renting it and
AirBNB. And NEVER be the first person to rent any place anywhere no matter how
nice it looks on line! The pictures I saw of the property I believe were from
2012 when the house was up for sale; way before this owner had it and did
nothing to repair it.
Front of the house….overgrown bushes and plenty of natural debris.
