I'm almost homeless: Why you should not go outside Airbnb's payment system
The place turned out to be infested, and without using airbnb's payment system, we were without recourse.
My co-founder and I moved to Austin Texas with enough money for two months of runway. All we needed to do in those two months was triple our monthly revenue to become ramen profitable. We felt we could do it in one month.
We booked one place on airbnb for 8 days and it was fantastic. We thought in that time we could find a more permanent place to stay. It was far harder to find housing in Austin than we anticipated.
We were getting desperate so we tried airbnb for a place for a month. I had read here at hacker news that people have great success negotiating better prices by contacting the hosts.
We only had a couple more days to find a place and we were getting desperate.
We found a place listed for $810 a month on airbnb. I offered the host $500. He gave me his phone number in a way so as to confuse airbnb's phone number filters.
I called him and he told me he would rent his place for $500 per month, but only if we paid in cash.
I knew it was a bad idea, but it was becoming a choice between a hotel (which I had no money for) and homelessness.
Everyone else we contacted said their places were booked or were 1200 per month or more. We were running out of options.
I paid him $500 in cash the day I arrived at the place and everything looked good in the day time.
When the sun set the first night we were watching Forrest Gump when we saw a gigantic cockroach climbing on the wall!
It was huge! I have never seen one that big in my life! I jumped up, and grabbed my backpack off the floor and another one runs out from under my backpack!
It turns out the place was crawling with roaches. We started seeing them everywhere.
They were large and not afraid of us, they would charge at us.
We realized this was not going to be a place where we could focus on our start up. We couldn't even get a good night sleep because I would dream of bugs crawling on me.
Then we start to notice that the host has put little cockroach traps in every room, we even see some rat traps in the kitchen.
It was after midnight now and we decided to just sleep there that one night and figure something out in the morning.
We slept with the lights on to hopefully scare the roaches away.
The place also had a ton of mosquitos, so many that I would get bit three times walking from the bedroom to the kitchen.
The next day we are seeing roaches in the kitchen crawling over the counters and everything. An apple that we bought and put on the counter had been cored out by what I imagine was an army of roaches that night.
The host isn't returning our calls. He finally comes around the next day.
We tell him that we are leaving and that we can't stay because of the roaches.
He claims that roaches are just a part of life in Texas and are completely normal.
He does give us back $160 dollars in cash though and tells us he will give us the rest later when he gets it. He says he will keep in touch.
We had to rent another place and pay another month's rent. This place doesn't have a real kitchen, so we are buying much more expensive food and burning money faster. Now things are getting tight. We are counting on this guy to come through for us with a refund.
I had been trying to contact him all week and he is ignoring me. Im trying to find a time to meet him to give him back the keys and get some boxes we had left there.
When I see him he tells me he moved back in and took the place off airbnb and doesn't feel he owes us anything because we should have sucked it up and dealt with the roaches.
I say I will feel it was fair if we pay half, and he says life isn't fair.
If we had used airbnb's payment system we could have gotten a full refund when the place was not as advertised within 24 hours. The host also chose a flexible c...
65 comments
[ 14.4 ms ] story [ 167 ms ] threadI'm just trying to protect someone else from getting screwed over by sharing my experience.
We could have we just ran out of time.
I feel for the people in the situation, but you have to use common sense particularly when you're using up the bulk of your runway in one payment. Part of business is sizing people up and making a decision about whether to trust them or not -- and when you make bad decisions there are consequences you have to live with.
And I haven't heard of $500/month rent in Austin in over a decade. For rent that cheap, expect hardships.
We learned this was a bad idea and have pivoted, and our planning on renting a 1 bedroom for our office as soon as possible.
It's not really surprising that someone who was willing to cheat AirBNB out of their cut of the deal was also willing to cheat you. You've got to watch out when you're dealing with people like that.
Couldn't you have hired exterminators for US$310? Let alone US$700. Also, Hostelling International Austin charges US$28 per bed per night with a shared bathroom in the room, so your (potential) savings on the AirBNB deal are at least good for a week in a youth hostel.
Boric acid. Just sprinkle it around the place (its not toxic to humans, or comparable to salt anyway), on the sideboards, and anywhere else the roaches are likely to go. It will kill them all pretty quickly.
I recently had issues with the neighbor having lots of them and boric acid really controlled them. Before applying I saw at least a dozen on any given day. Afterwards I was (un)lucky to see one a week.
When you see one roach, you can rest assured that 25 more are in the walls. See 5, and yes, there are 125 roaches waiting in the wings.
Winged ones you will need to control with screens and closed doors but believe me when I say that's easier to do then get rid of the ones crawling around.
This is FALSE, and very dangerous advice for people with infants.
Quote from NSW Food Authority [1]:
"Borax, also known as sodium borate (Na2B4O7.10H2), and boric acid (H3BO3) are colourless, salt-like substance that can also be a white powder."
"What are the symptoms of Borax poisoning?
Some of the symptoms of Borax ingestion include headache, fever, nausea, vomiting, and red eyes.
Symptoms may appear 2 to 4 hours after ingesting Borax.
If you have ingested Borax, or come into contact with someone with these symptoms, you should call the NSW Poisons Information 24 hour hot line on 13 11 26 and seek immediate medial attention at your local doctor’s surgery or hospital.
If large amounts of Borax are consumed, acute kidney failure and death may result."
Not to say it isn't good at killing roaches, but please don't use it believing it's non-toxic.
[1] http://www.foodauthority.nsw.gov.au/consumers/other-food-top...
That was my previous understanding though. If you have any sources to show what sort of consumption you need to have any sort of toxic effect I would be very interested.
Something people reading this may not know is that Chinese restaurants did use it for a long time as a meat tenderiser and still do in China and presumably in other parts of the world too.
Suspicious of the safety of these additives, a chemist from the U.S. Department of Agriculture formed volunteer "Poison Squads" to test if these substances were actually safe or not. The article discusses his work, and is worth a look.
"Death in the Pot": http://www.laphamsquarterly.org/essays/death-in-the-pot.php?...
There are other pesticides that are less dangerous to babies.
I recently had problems in reactor six and boric acid really helped me get things under control. (Too bad for Sergei and Vlad though...) Anyway, at least I was lucky enough.
Still, a great article that serves value to the community since many of us will use AirBnB sooner or later.
Do you have proof, OP? Pictures?
I could put a link to the dude's airbnb profile. I feel like he screwed me and failed to disclose a material defect, but still I'm not sure.
$500 - $160 = $340.
Basic Math might be why you guys are low on money fyi.
Ohh and gl in austin.
I can't believe people are thinking it's fake. Its funny.
I am going to leave the thread now and get back to work. I was just mad and wanted to share. It made me feel better.
We tell him that we are leaving and that we can't stay because of the roaches.
He claims that roaches are just a part of life in Texas and are completely normal.
He does give us back $160 dollars in cash though and tells us he will give us the rest later when he gets it. He says he will keep in touch"
Sorry, but I think you're being unreasonable by asking for too much. It's the same as the adage about Fast/Good/Cheap--pick two, you can never have all three. It sounds like the owner was busy, not avoiding you--he comes over the next day and that's avoiding? He gives you part of your money back and doesn't lie about the issue. I'm failing to see a problem here.
I also find the entire story highly exaggerated: An apple that we bought and put on the counter had been cored out by what I imagine was an army of roaches that night.
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"When I see him he tells me he moved back in and took the place off airbnb and doesn't feel he owes us anything because we should have sucked it up and dealt with the roaches.
I say I will feel it was fair if we pay half, and he says life isn't fair."
Again, this is completely reasonable. He owes you nothing, you didn't sign a contract. You had unrealistic expectations that under any circumstances would have been disappointed no matter what the situation.
Edit: I'm becoming more convinced this story is entirely fake to begin with looking at what questions the OP has chosen to answer/ignore.
Let me tell you, I hate bugs as much as the next guy and I feel for you. I lived in some dumps, but never with any roaches. I went to college up north in Minnesota and we used to all pitch in and get bug bombs for our house. About once every 6 months always did the trick.
You don't say in your article why you needed to move to Austin in the first place. What was it about where you were living which wasn't conducive to your start-up succeeding?
You can simulate a great deal of a kitchen if you buy a hot plate, a rice cooker, and maybe a microwave or toaster oven. You'll have to wash dishes in the bathroom sink. It sucks. But eating out isn't always your only option.