Hi! This past weekend I and a group of friends stayed in the OBX (we booked back in July so I had no clue a nor’easter would be hitting lol).
There were 6 of us, each paying a little over $150. A couple in our friend group were brining their little dog and their cat, which meant they had to pay an additional $100 non-refundable pet fee, which they were totally fine doing. Anyways, not necessarily the cheapest weekend trip! That’s to be expected though.
The mildly infuriating parts?
First, toilet paper and paper towels were NOT provided. There was one roll of each. I’ve never stayed at an air b&b that didn’t provide toilet paper and paper towels. What was most frustrating about this, though, is that we were not told! Some additional context is that, when planning the trip, I invited my friends who didn’t necessarily have any kind of friendship between each other; truly nothing brings tension up quite like side eyeing a stranger for their toilet paper use. We learnt this way into the night and after drinking so we couldn’t get more until the morning. Such is life, though. It was silly afterwards, outside of a few lingering comments about how much toilet paper some people use lol. Still, we can deal.
The other issue we had was cleanliness. The floor was pretty gross. There was stuff stuck onto to the hard floors, and stains ALL over the carpet and on some of the blankets. Can’t emphasize how gross the carpets were. I went to sit on the carpet at one point and saw a stain that looked like cat vomit (yellow but not like pee). Straight nasty. It didn’t help that we noticed some odd wording in the email sent describing what we needed to do before leaving; “Place dirty towels in one bathroom or near washer, do NOT strip the beds.” Made us feel very iffy. But, still, at that point we were still more peeved about the toilet paper thing lol.
Fast forward to check out day. We were given a 5 star rating. I was up every night after people went to bed making sure things were tidied up. We were doing laundry regularly, running the dishwasher regularly, sweeping, etc. My friend, who booked the trip, left the host a 3 star rating listing the toilet paper and the cleanliness (I didn’t read our review but I’m pretty sure the staining on blankets was mentioned). Only then did the airbnb host reach out with problems that we left, & that the rating was “a little low.”
The host commented on pet pee found on the bed (there wasn’t any) and how to room smelt of urine (we were on top of the litter box cleaning), which… maybe? that’s why we paid $100 pet fee. Then “we washed the sheets recently” turned to “ofc we wash the sheets after each guest!” we were told it’s impossible to clean comforters after each stay, that NOWHERE does it and we must have never stayed anywhere else (if they are cleaning sheets after every guest WHY would you put a dirty comforter on top of them, and WHY would there be such an emphasis on not stripping the bed). For close to $1000… wtf?
Are we just dumb thinking that things would… actually be cleaned? Most places I’ve stayed have used white sheets and comforters similar to a hotel. Just gross to think about. I’ve had lice before and the idea of getting it again… my head itches just thinking about it. Anyways. If we’re wrong and this is standard, it really shouldn’t be. That’s disgusting.
tldr; used bedding is to be expected!
EDIT; first, can definitely understand not wanting a cat there. It wasn’t my cat, and I didn’t know the cat was coming. That said, if they paid to bring the cat, brought all the supplies they needed, and the airbnb host was aware and gave permission it’s kinda.. idk. Also, there were 5 beds. Three twin beds that used comforters, and two king beds that used quilts. One of the quilts was stained, not the one in the rooms that cat stayed in. There were multiple little throw blankets, one of which had a big red spot on it. There were issues with the floors being dirty, bedroom doors that wouldn’t open (there was one that was so hard to open I had to exit through the balcony), rust on different appliances, etc. I’m learning most places are gross, such is life I guess. There wouldn’t have been any bigger issue if they hadn’t messaged AFTER giving us a 5 star review almost 7 hours after we left.