AIBU to let you all know that Airbnb hosts have shit happen sometime?

[Jujujuile]

Two guests booked in from tomorrow for the weekend and my boiler’s gone wrong! The engineer has just told me it’s dead. Thankfully I have the funds to pay for a new one, but I have to wait for it to be installed.

With the paperwork / receipt to prove this has happened, telling airbnb is no problem. I’ve also called the person who booked to say sorry, and understandably she was very angry.

Airbnb hosts have a bad reputation for this, but I just wanted to put my side of it.

@juju there are some right sanctimonious dicks on here. YANBU :) How were you to know that boiler was to break down?! Airbnb is cheaper than hotels for a reason, you (usually) stay in someone's home and have to accept that, just in your own home, things go wrong unexpectedly! Clearly the bitchy comments on this thread are from people who replace their boiler the minute it so much as splutters, get their homes rewired as soon as a fuse blows and are gifted with second sight so they can preempt that the ballcock will get stuck and the cistern will overflow, flooding the flat and leaking into the two flats below (not that that last one has happened to me or anything)

I love airbnb and have stayed in some lovely accommodation and had amazing friendly tourist info - and guided tours of a capital city - for no charge. 100% better than a normal holiday let. Sometimes things go wrong, that happens in hotels too, there is no perfect system.

Ok then, I don't think it's your responsibility to find them new accommodation.

Huge downside of airbnb though. I don't blame them for being raging.

Anywhere can have equipment break down...yes it would be annoying these things happen.

Some unnessary comments - we all have situations arise that cause us problems.

The op has rang the customer directly, she could have left it till the customer arrived then explained. As another poster mentioned this can happen in hotels - it is just the way the cookie crumbles.

Good luck op on getting a new boiler trouble free.

Jujujulie - sorry but I don't really agree with your comment that it is down to Airbnb to offer a solution. They are not a booking agency they are an advertising website. if you were advertising on owners direct or group accommodation would you expect them to sort it out? if your boiler was old but still serviceable then I would have said if you are letting a property that you should be looking ahead and realising that old things wear out and perhaps have stepped in to repair it sooner. We run our own business. our customers expect us to fulfill our contract. they aren't interested in our problems with staff or equipment or transport or anything else. if you advertise your property on Airbnb then its a business. its not the original ethos of Airbnb which was one step up from sofasurfers but it is what it has become. Part of that business is anticipation of problems. I don't blame them for being angry. but I do blame them for booking something through Airbnb rather than something which has a quality assurance mark like Visit Britain or visit England.

Yes, this is the problem with Airbnb. If you've booked a hotel and something goes wrong at short notice they usually offer alternative accommodation or they have a back up plan if a boiler breaks or whatever.
I wouldn't book Airbnb either because of things like this and I think if you do book one, then you must be prepared that something could go wrong at short notice.

I too love Airbnb and have had an instance (pre Airbnb) where I have not had the house ready because of burst pipe.

I offered them a room in a local bnb and paid their bill. I knew the owners who gave me a deal.
Not exactly what they booked but they understood.

I think when I rang them I would have had an alternative

A boiler can be serviced regularly and still fail unexpectedly. I feel for you Jujujuile . Mine went in the holiday cottage due to a storm - it blew some vital electronic part that was available only from the manufacturer on a 2 week turnaround.

We opted to replace which was quicker but we were still down for 4 days and it cost me the best part of £5000,

Sometimes a quick repair just isn't possible.

mummy, 'I don't really agree with your comment that it is down to Airbnb to offer a solution.'

You may not like it, but it IS down to Airbnb to do this, by the site's own terms and operating principles. They'er very strict on how guests and hosts should communicate and where responsibilities lie.

As for the guest being 'angry', I find that a puzzling response. A similar thing happened to me as a guest and while I was disappointed and apprehensive about what might happen, I was certainly not angry at the host themselves. It's beyond their control.

This summer the hot l I was booked into had to shut for 3 months due to excessive seaweed.

Shit happens to everyone, not just Air BnB owners. Booking a hotel does not guarantee you your accommodation either.

Soup, I have to ask, where was the hut?

It isn't just airbnb who have issues like this. I rent out a holiday house through an agent and we have had a few glitches. Thankfully nothing that has meant cancelling guests but we have had to bring extra electric radiators when the heating wasn't working properly and we had to apologise profusely when the oven stopped working. Shit happens.

You've dodged a bullet there though as imagine them actually being in your home. Wankers.

Some arsey comments on here too.

Soup, I have to ask, where was the hut?

No hut but the hotel was in Antigua.

Two guests booked in from tomorrow for the weekend and my boiler’s gone wrong! The engineer has just told me it’s dead. Thankfully I have the funds to pay for a new one, but I have to wait for it to be installed

Then...

When I say it is dead, I mean that it is old and I’ve decided to get a new one

I’m a bit confused. Was it possible to have it repaired for the guests this weeken, but you chose to replace it...or, is it as dead as a dodo and unable to be repaired?

Why are they 'wankers' for being upset that their accommodation has fallen through at the last minute?

Because being angry at someone for something they can't possibly help is both inexcusably rude and a sign of a huge wanker IMO.

(Why, is that something you do?)

Christ some people want the moon on a stick

It was very nice of you to ring in person and apologise

If you're using air bnb it is a risk you take. Most hosts are not professional hoteliers with a chain of other properties . Of course it is inconvenient but in no way is it OP's responsibility to find an alternative. There are - unless you are on a remote hebridean island - usually plenty of others on the same listing site.

These things happen , it's unfortunate and you have done all you can , if I was the guest I would simply find myself somewhere else to stay , being ' angry' is in this case a waste of emotion and energy

No sympathy for airbnb owners.

I hate airbnb. It's converted a considerable number of long-term rentals into short-term rentals, and raised rents for locals with those on low income feeling the greatest impact.

My DH is more sympathetic towards it, but after the last 2 stays, he agrees with me - Never again!

If you run your property like a business, you need to behave like a business.

Inyerest8ng to see that most people seem to think that people are running a business with AirB&B and therefore should ensure nothing will be an issue for their clients.

Some people on AirB&B are indeed business people.
But I’ve also stayed in places where AurB&B was a way to make a bit of money when things hard. Think students renting one room from time to time, someone who was renting a room from her Council home a few nights a year.
That was the whole point of AurB&B, not to have everyone making a whole business out of it.

OP I have to say I think I wouod have left AirB&B sorting it out. Few (or very few?? See he reaction on this thread - did yu actually have your boiler serviced etc etc) will be understanding and the fee you are paying is also going towards them giving you that service. Not just the App/website.

I see it as a risk worth taking personally with airbnb. We've recently got back from staying in one, and the previous clients had broken the dishwasher. Our host apologised a lot, saying they'd ordered a new one but it hadn't arrived yet and that was that. Not the end of the world.

I'd be very annoyed in their situation.

They've been let down. There probably isn't much the OP could have done to avoid it, but it's an inbuilt problem with the airbnb model that the OP is a part of. They probably don't know all the ins and outs, just that they've been left in the lurch.

People are allowed to have emotions you know. . Even the OP acknowledges they were 'understandably' angry.

If they were abusive, that would be different and you might have a point.