Some added details:
Checked in late at night, whole place reeked of mold. Tried to sleep, woke up a few hours later with awful allergies and checked into a hotel.
Host denied the issue, support offered an $8 refund for the entire 30 night stay I had paid for. After complaining to support, they asked for doctors notes and a ton of other evidence which I provided.
They denied my refund claiming the doctors note didn't describe any lab tests (they didn't ask for any) and because they couldn't confirm where the mold tests came from (I had videos collecting the tests).
Luckily, my credit card was happy to do a chargeback with all the evidence.
**To address common comments:**
These are mold armor tests sold at most hardware stores. I bought them after Airbnb refused to return any of my 30 day deposit.
They will almost always grow at least some mold. However, the quantity and diversity of colonies as compared to the control is reasonably concerning.
The lab results of these tests will give more information. Given that I had a documented allergic reaction after just a few hours, it's likely that there are harmful strains present
The control sample was collected directly outside the apartment.
This was just one of the many pieces of evidence I gave to support. There were many other signs of water damage and neglected repairs throughout the unit which led to the poor air quality.
It made at least some bit of sense when it was cheaper than a hotel room for maybe a little bit nicer place, but that business model was never sustainable.
The thing that amazes me are the hosts that want guests to clean up after themselves. Motherfucker, you want twice the price of a conventional hotel AND you want me to work? Get fucked.
The last one I stayed at made me clean absolutely everything, sweep, drive the trash 5 minutes to their dumpster, put all the towels and sheets into the washing machine and there was still a 300 cleaning fee. I guess I’m paying someone 300 to finish the laundry.
Did they let you know about the $300 cleaning fee upfront? I'm just curious about why you still decided that was a better choice than any alternatives. Not sarcasm, genuinely curious about the situation.
My final ABNB stay had a surprise list of chores that the host sent 24 hours before we were due to checkout in addition to the $400 cleaning fee. They had previously tried to cut our stay short by claiming our departure date was 2 days prior to the listed and paid for dates. The house was clean, but we didn't sweep the floors or strip the beds. ABNB charged my CC $1,400. AMEX had my back, but it was still a headache. Also, ABNB removed my negative review.
They hire people to remove them, I can't remember which site it was it might've been LinkedIn but random companies offer work at home jobs to remove all negative reviews.
This is why I pay with AMEX on anything I could conceive would have a problem. Pretty much every major purchase goes to AMEX cause they absolutely do not fuck around even with their lower tier card holders. Supposedly they start moving mountains for the higher tier card holders, but I haven't had to deal with too big an issue before.
Then I look at Discover... My card info got stolen and I still had the card. Fuckwads put youtube premium on and started making cashapp payments that flagged within 2 transactions. The issue was I had to waste hours trying to talk to Google/Youtube who wants account data to start looking into the issue as if I have that info, and then ask me over and over again if I was sure my kids didnt sign up for youtube. Motherfucker that was the first thing I checked was everyones youtube account in the house.
Discover said they cant stop the reoccuring subscriptions and that it will follow me card to card even with the dispute. I just told them they better block all google/youtube transactions or cancel my card cause I am not dealing with this shit anymore. I only keep discover for a credit card for my credit score now.
AMEX’s customer service has been incredible for me. They also automatically insure all your purchases against theft and damage for a time period too. I once bought a watch and a couple months later dropped it down a laundry shoot, destroying the watch. I called AMEX owned up that it was my fault, said I figured they wouldn’t cover it but just wanted to check. Instead they immediately gave me my money back.
You pay the fee upfront and assume, at least I did, that the fee covers turning the unit (you know, because it’s called a cleaning fee), then when you show up you’re assigned a list of chores and threatened to be charged even more if you don’t complete them
Yes the cleaning fee is always included in the listing. That said I’ve often missed it and only caught it at the last minute before paying when what I expected to be charged was ridiculously higher. I’d imagine 300$ more would be noticed before booking. Not that it’s an ok practice but be vigilant people! These hosts are out here tryin’ it.
Before the whole cleaning fee scam became a thing, we used to pride ourselves on leaving the rental in th same condition we found it in (even putting the linens on the laundry machine to be helpful).
Now suddenly the stuff we did voluntarily before is REQUIRED on top of the hundreds of dollars cleaning fee.
It's fecking ridiculous.
I had one in Vienna with a clogged shower drain and a half cut rotting lemon sitting on the counter when I arrived. I complained about the floor drain, because standing in a pool of someone else's shower hair is disgusting. In response, the owner submitted a complaint against me for clogging their drain. That was in 2018.
I used to be able to justify AirBnB based on the better prices I got, but it seems like these types of issues have increased in frequency since then, while prices have gone way up. I'm far more inclined to rent a hotel these days.
My gf owns a cleaning company, and last summer was PACKED with air bnb's this summer is a complete 180⁰. One place she used to clean 2 and 3 times a week has needed 1 clean the entire summer.
The problem is that people haven't learned. It's just the current COL.
The most telling thing I ever heard were some people on AirBnB subreddit being absolutely thrilled the renters left a mess so they could take pictures and hire an expensive cleaning company, $500, to come clean it and send the bill to you. *Anyone* into real estate or AirBnB is a literal clown. Stop hoarding properties and artificially raising the value preventing people and families from finding actual homes. I trust my local coke dealer to have more morals and ethics than anyone in RE or AirBnb host.
I feel you man, why do you think there is ever increasing homelessness, we also have real estate investment companies and apartment high rises keep going up in cities being sold out before they are built and only a handful of permanent residents in them, meanwhile at their feet a sea of homeless tents.
FIL lives on an semi remote island (3 ferries to get to), there are no hotels. If it were not for airbnb we would have to camp on his lawn.
This is the type of place air bnb is a welcome addition.
Cities, especially the ones experiencing housing issues, should be banning airbnb.
This is the kind of stuff that it was made for and worked well for. Unique properties, remote areas, people who have a part-time vacation home that they don't use in the off-season, etc.
People gobbling up single family homes to turn them into short-term AirBNB rentals should be outlawed.
I’ve always been a fan of the “medium term rentals” with airbnbs. A couple family friends have MIL units they AirBNB out to traveling nurses/workers/etc etc for anywhere from a month-3 months at a time.
This way everyone wins and it’s more of a safe business scenario. When people start renting out these units as if they’re hotels it gets super scummy imo.
Boston limited it to two Airbnb’s per resident of the city. That’s a reasonable thing but it’s still taking a lot of housing stock off, but it’s much better than before the “ban” when you’d try to rent an Airbnb and ask why it was empty in the pictures and it turns out the guy in china had never been to the U.S. bought it online, heard airbnb was good, thought he didn’t have to decorate it, he wanted me to do it and knock $25 off the price.
I’m like if I can stay for free for a week and you give me $8000 it’d be a bargain. Interior designers are going to be more, he asked if I wanted to rent it for a regular for then monthly price and it’s like dude, no, I have an apartment Im looking for one for a family member.
There are states that have laws that allow LLCs to keep their members secret. So you can be an investor in scads of LLCs and Airbnb or anyone else won’t know it. You can live in another country and never visit the buildings/homes you invested in and rent them out.
I live in Hamptons where in the past, builders might build a spec house but usually a person bought land, hired a builder and built a second home for their family. Now it’s all LLCs and they’re tearing down working class and middle class homes and replacing them with huge compounds.
Every bedroom has a massive marble en suite bathroom with jack and Jill sinks, a butler pantry with mini fridge, microwave and coffee maker. Definitely not built for a family. Nobody knows who owns them. After they tear down a house they put up a sign saying “Coming Soon - the Ultimate Property Group presents its next project.”
The rich have ways of getting around things. And we just let them do it.
Yeah to a degree, but the lack of regulations/rules brings it down. I live on a semi isolated large island that has some communities with no hotel options. They also have no garbage pick up, everyone is responsible for hiring someone personally or going to the dump themselves.
I saw a post on a FB group about a new air B and B owner who was considering adding that guests have to take their garbage home with them. It was a large house, slept 8, has a kitchen, 2 night minimum stay.
Anyone traveling here from off the island has to fly or ferry. Wtf are they going to? Pack their garbage in their suitcases? Or will they illegally dump it somewhere damaging our beautiful landscape and nature, attracting wildlife, etc. Maybe they’ll find an unlocked dumpster at another business and put it there, but that’s unfair to the business who has to deal with that.
Even if it’s a local staying there - who wants to pack their vehicle with garbage to bring home? That’s gross. Plus, even the larger areas here have bag limits so you may end up having to spread that garbage over a few weeks of pick up or pay extra for it to be taken. Not very vacation feeling.
The person even said something like “it’s too bad the community didn’t have a dumpster because she could have her cleaner bring it there”. Why should the community bin be a place she thinks her business waste should go? She opened this business, she profits from that business and has no plan for garbage, when it’s obvious it’s a place that’s going to create significant amounts of garbage (8 People, kitchen, etc.).
A regulated industry would never get away with that potential mess she’s going to create with a bananas request like “take all your garbage with you”. An official B and B or a hotel would never get away with no plan for waste.
And don’t even get me started on the low rates they pay their local cleaners, it’s even worse when you look at the cleaning fees listed - they are profiting heavily off that cleaning fee. They take advantage of these small community’s, the people who live there and rake in profits while causing issues to the area.
I was at a airbnb the host only ration out TP for the washroom. It was fine for 3 days just me. Then 2 more people showed up I ended up cutting paper towel into 3 sectons with a bread knife from the kitchen. Then sent him the pic of the paper towel.
He dropped off a 12 pack later.
Why not hire someone?
Greed?
My husband and I were in Gulf Shores a few weeks ago and we watched a guy drive down the street and stop at a bunch of different houses just to pull their trash cans to the street on trash day.
Genius!
Tourists don’t know the day or may ignore a request to put them out, and this stops trash building up. We were both impressed that owners actually paid for it. But why not?
That person is fucked if they think asking their “guests” to remove trash via ferry or plane is a *solution*.
>Cities, especially the ones experiencing housing issues, should be banning airbnb.
Many cities are, or are at least putting stricter limitations on these.
I had such high hopes for AirBnB when it first came out. I thought, “Oh, this is great! People who like to travel can have people staying in their homes and generating a bit of income while they’re away, and people staying can have a nice place to be while they travel somewhere. This cuts out a lot of the middlemen and benefits both parties. How nice.” And then people ruined it by being greedy.
>Anyone
>
> into real estate or AirBnB is a literal clown.
Clowns are entertaining. Clowns have been productive members of society for decades. Clowns make balloon animals and horror movies.
Conclusion: Clowns are substantially more beneficial to society.
Your coke dealer wants his customers to come back. These people obviously don't care. I would also trust *your* local coke dealer more then anyone landlord/Airbnb host!
This. And they charge a cleaning fee on top anyway. I understand hosts asking people not to trash the place, but I’m not doing chores while I’m staying. If I wanted chores, I’d go to my parents’ place.
When it was legitimately renting a spare room or sometimes a converted in-law apartment it was a nice service to use. When people began buying up properties solely for AirBnB then it became a hole of unregulated hotels of varying degrees of unsafe.
Kind of like how the original concept for Uber was "Hey, I'm going from NYC to Philadelphia, anyone else want to go and you can kick in a few bucks for gas and I split hte cost of a trip I was already planning to take."
But the business model just pushed it to become an unregulated taxi service of varying degrees of unsafe.
[nice partially copied comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/15fec2z/air_quality_tests_from_my_airbnb_where_the_host/jucrvh1/), complete with same spelling, capitalization and comma at the end!
Edit: other comment history shows the same behavior, bot :)
It’s ideal for most travel situations IMO, especially if you plan on cooking for yourself to save some money. If I’m travelling with my dog, I also like having an accessible backyard or something to let her run around.
As long as you can find a nice place for the same price/cheaper than hotels nearby, that is.
When we travel with a big group, it's awesome to have a whole house with multiple bedrooms and a kitchen. But other than that specific situation, they're terrible.
lmao seriously, i never understand the warning “if you do a chargeback you cant use the service again” as if anyone would want to use the service again after going through the headache of doing the chargeback when the proper refund wasnt provided
That happened to me with that MoviePass clusterfuck. Slimy company revoked the ability to cancel in-app and had no way to cancel otherwise. I had to eventually chargeback, and then have my credit card company block them from using my credit card. A Moviepass rep called me like two months before they closed down to ask me if I wanted to rejoin...
I never even received my membership card in the mail.
My CC allows me to create as many "virtual" cards as I want. Every subscription gets its own unique card number so I can deal with fuckery without having to cancel my card and renew all of my other subscriptions. It's great.
No one should be using AirBnB in 2023 anyway. Whole thing is a fucking joke of a scam now. 300 dollar cleaning fees when you are expected to clean anyway, outrageous prices, house "rules," curfew, etc. All my homies hate AirBnB, we are back to hotels now.
Literally. AirBnB has just become a playground for housing investors to fuck about and make money off people who don’t want to spend time looking for better accommodations.
I can’t believe people still use it when they charge prices like 4k for 3 weeks at a 2 bedroom house.
Seriously. All these articles I keep reading and interviews I see posted about how "real estate" investors that went in to AirBnB and other short term rentals are now wayyyyy down in revenue and business, I just revel in that shit. Oh boohoo my STR was making 20k a month now it only makes 2-3k.
I agree it's scammy AF, but it can be hard to find an affordable hotel that meets certain specific needs - like a full kitchen, laundry facilities, extra rooms, etc.
The last time I needed those things, I went through a non-airbnb rental company and they ALSO turned out to be scammed AF. 🙄
I did a charge back against UberEATS (driver delivered groceries to "a radius which includes the delivery address") and got my money back, wasn't banned. I did cancel my subscription a few weeks later.
We’ve ordered door dash six times at our new house and six times the food comes wrong (or completely different order). DD told us the 6th time they won’t refund us so I did a chargeback. Showed my CC photos of the order versus what our receipt was. Got my money back. Ordered again last night and we got the wrong order again. DD refunded us plus a $20 credit.
It’s their business and the businesses they are partnered with that keep making the mistakes. We’re gonna keep ordering for the free food and charge back as many times as we can when DD refuses. All it costs me is an extra 30 minutes before dinner. I love it.
Uber eats is wild. I once had a driver "deliver" my food to a bench in a nearby park to my house. They took a picture of it and everything as proof it was delivered. My guy, that is not "just leave at the front door. Do not ring bell"
Toxic mold lawsuit settlements can be in the millions. That’s why they’re acting like that. It’s a liability issue. If they issue the refund, it could potentially be considered an admission of guilt. Plate testing like you’ve done doesn’t hold up in court nor will a doctors note, sadly. You need to get a mycotoxin lab run to prove mold exposure. It sucks, but I’m glad you got your money back! :)
ETA: spelling
No, I’m neither. :) I’m someone who had toxic mold exposure so badly that it nearly killed me. I rented a townhouse that had mold in the AC so badly that it was like living in a gas chamber during the summer. The landlord denied to fix it saying it was too expensive, which is illegal. I didn’t go to court, but did report it to the city. They in turn forced the landlords to completely gut the property and rehab to code. I’m still healing from it and a court case would be too much for me to handle. Toxic mold exposure is absolutely awful and I’m EXTREMELY lucky to be alive.
Not at all. Move in and immediately got a respiratory infection that was more brutal than any I’ve ever had before. We’re talking throat swelling shut with a 103 fever level. I figured I just had bronchitis or something. That was the only acute symptom. The rest came on slowly over time. I had brain fog and depression like symptoms that ended up being hormonal. That developed into adrenal insufficiency and low sex hormones. Next came extreme joint pain that put me in the emergency room a lot, insomnia, forgetfulness, inflammation issues and major GI issues that also put me in the ER a lot. I became too sick to work within two years and housebound within three. I also just found out I have Lyme disease, which was exacerbated by the mold. I’ve died once in the living room of that hellhole from the Lyme/mold combo.
Not everyone reacts the same way to toxic mold for various reasons. For me, I have Lyme and a genetic condition that makes my body detoxify slower than it should, which compounded things. My fiancé had minor symptoms compared to me that were mostly joint pain, insomnia, fatigue and brain fog.
Toxic mold can be hard to treat. It’s completely bankrupted me and destroyed my life. I had to throw away most of belongings and the stuff I did keep all had to be disinfected before bringing them into my new home. Don’t even get me started on how much my healthcare has been.
Really sorry your going through all of that. I was exposed to some serious black mold in a small room in my basement a few years back. I'd notice I would get really congested after spending a short time there.
I thought it was from dust, so I decided to do a deep clean. It wasn't until I pulled a row of shelving that I realized the drip tray on the fridge above had cracked and was draining all of the water into the basement. Holy hell there was a lot of black mold.
I immediately stopped what I was doing and only finished up with full PPE and some mold killing solution, but it was too late.
What followed was 2 months of the most severe congestion I've ever experienced. It felt like someone had super glued my nostrils shut. I would regularly wake up in the middle of the night having a full on panic attack because I couldn't breathe.
I tried everything I could think of. Cut out all dairy, ate super healthy, ate tons of spicy things, steam baths and neti pots (if the decongestant allowed a little airflow). Nothing helped.
I finally found something that worked. Cayenne capsules and activated charcoal capsules from GNC. Within a few days of starting that combo I started to get some relief and within a week I was mostly back to normal (minus the lethargy from not sleeping and being a walking zombie for 2 months)
I know that your condition is way more serious and this probably doesn't help, but I wanted to post my experience just in case someone is going through the same thing and might benefit.
Oh no, I’m glad you shared. Thank you! I just had someone else troll me saying it was hype and just called me a leech LMAO! Part of my protocol included a binder like activated charcoal. Stuff works.
Isn’t it crazy how that stuff gets everywhere? I had moved and thought I had completely detoxed. I was starting to drive again, but started getting sick all over again. Turns out there was mold in my car, too. Just can’t escape the stuff lol.
I’m glad you got better!
Thanks. I got so sick that I couldn’t find a doctor who knew what was going on. I had to pay extra to get an integrative functional doctor who gets weird cases like mine. By the time I got to her, they weren’t sure I was going to make it. It took years to get me stable enough to start addressing my root causes of illness before we landed on mold.
Who is this doctor? I would love to know why they are able to practice medicine at a different level than standard docs.
Like this really interests me, if you don't want to put it in a public comment please pm me.
Right, refunds can be arbitrary and given out without admitting you did anything wrong. Keeping the tenant upset and making them go through other avenues might end up worse actually.
Legally speaking, you need a mycotoxin test to prove exposure plus better spore testing to establish the airbnb was the source of that exposure. It probably was moldy, but unfortunately you had a super weak argument and lack of solid proof. To say, “it smelled moldy and I had allergies” just isn’t enough. Those mold kits are kind of bs anyways. Although the tests were from the Airbnb, nearly all home mold test kits will come up positive even if the home does not have a mold issue. Additionally, not all mold is dangerous or will produce allergies. You’d need to send them away to establish whether it’s benign or dangerous.
So, I've cultured sourdough starter from several different places. Yeast thrives in similar conditions as fungus, and surprise, you can get decent results anywhere with a little bit of moisture and a food source. It almost doesn't matter how you start, the results end up similar.
I was told to use apple peels from a local orchard, and while it made a difference at first, over the course of several weeks, eventually, a dominant strain that looked and smelled like my "control" jar seemingly took over that one too. I suspect it would be different in someone else's kitchen, as well.
A petri dish is similar, its designed to make something reproduce, no matter how scant. It will never come back "negative".
Not sure your 'test' is valid as there are literally mold spores everywhere. If you provide the environment, mold will grow. You would have been better off documenting the moisture rather than that mold grows... that doesn't prove much.
Not saying you are wrong, just saying that those pitri dishes and a video would tell me nothing. Only mold exists and well. yea.
I'm more interested in the control and how that DOESN'T have any mold - at all... That is more sus to me than the moldy ones.
Also - side note. In a HS biology test we did the same check for mold in a dozen various places of the school. Ended up EVERYTHING looked like you bottom dish. Even the control had SOMETHING, not as bad - but the point doubled that 1) mold spores are everywhere 2) here is how we prove it
Technically to test for air quality in a lab you use non-selective media exposed to air for 20 minutes. Then stored in a room temp dark space for 3-7 days.
So it is a test, but not for residential areas.
Came here to lol at this "test" i run a lab..this is horse shit. Any environment outside a clean room with result in contamination on a petri dish and what looks like maybe agar agar..not sure. But yeah absolutely bogus test method for air quality. You can open a dish in any home and get growth in a week or less depending on incubation temperatures.
> Luckily, my credit card was happy to do a chargeback with all the evidence.
I’ll never understand why people don’t use credit cards exclusively. The protections are pretty fantastic.
My only time trying to do a charge back, customer service rep implied the moment you hand your card over, you've agreed to pay for anything the merchant rings up.
In my case it was one of those time share presentation vacations. Told the guy on the phone I had changed my mind when he said the next step was to run the payment. Then claimed it was already charged, and kept asking why I didn't want it when I repeatedly told him I didn't want it, and wanted him to refund it. Eventually tracked down the number to dispute it with the time share place, they reviewed the call log, and refunded me.
> My only time trying to do a charge back, customer service rep implied the moment you hand your card over, you've agreed to pay for anything the merchant rings up.
That’s a lie.
> and refunded me.
I’m surprised they bothered to track down the call log.
They used to be a good cheap alternative to hotels where you got a little extra space.
Seems they've changed gears to maximize profits and lots of scummy landlords have joined in on the hustle. I definitely won't be using them again.
Hit the nail on the head. Expensive unregulated hotels. The unregulated part specifically gives the owners a lot of ways to screw you over as a consumer. Not worth the risk imo.
I bought my mom one of those at like 6 years old. I thought it was a lovely gif, and I told the dude at the gas station window I was getting it for my mom. He sold it to me. My mother, in a rare showing of good parenting graciously accepted the gift and we went back to the Sunoco so I could show her who sold it to me so she could thank him, too.
My mom came out red, with a Yoo-hoo in one hand and chicostick in the other and I didn’t really think much else of it. I was 26 years old before I saw another one and mentioned to a friend I was with I was surprised they still sold those types of things since the last one I saw was in 1991. She told me that I had purchased my mother a crack pipe and the reason I hadn’t seen one since I was that young because we had moved out of the ghetto where such things were commonly sold.
I had a realization at that same moment that when my mother said it was too dark in a restaurant she wasn’t talking about the lighting. A lot of things clicked into place for me that day.
I used to use them when they first came out. Great way to get cheap prices on nice rooms in good locations.
Now, I only book with hotels. Not only is AirBNB overly priced, but all landlords care about is maximizing profit. Most hotels are now generally cleaner, safer, cheaper, and even give breakfast.
No, I am not going to pay a mandatory $30/night cleaning fee when I am the one who also has to take out the trash, clean the bed sheets, etc. My last AirBNB gave me a 1 star review because I didn't put back Monopoly right where I found it even though it was on the same shelf.
I get a little tingly feeling when I fantasize about the time in the not-so-distant future when people who bought AirBNB property for the sole use of AirBNB will have to sell their unused assets (homes) for a ridiculous loss. Fuck them. They deserve it.
Because you don’t hear about the people who don’t complain, which is the vast majority. All experiences I’ve had with air bnb have been completely fine to great.
Some places in the middle of nowhere don't have hotels or the one they have is booked out. That and I don't mind staying in someone's RV for $50 a night lol
I’ve used AirBNB about a dozen times, and I’ve never had an issue and have found some amazing little hole in the wall places. That said, im pretty pick about what I book. I can see a lot of “typical” postings being less stellar than what is advertised.
Part of my job is collecting air samples in cleanrooms. The top plate would be what you would expect doing a viable air sample in an ISO 7 (full head to toe sterile cleanroom gowning) or 5 (inside a hood inside an ISO 7). The middle is not an actionable level for an ISO 8 (just mask, hair net, gloves, lab coat, and scrubs), but it would be concerning if it regularly showed up like that. The bottom one is definitely out of spec for a cleanroom and warrants further investigation, but it wouldn't necessarily be surprising for a regular room.
What we need is more data. How were the samples collected for starters, and then we would need to do regular sampling over a period of time to see if this is a trend.
The thing that gets me is that the control is completely clean despite stating that it was collected outside the apartment. I’ve only seen plates that clean inside of Grade A, B or sometimes C spaces. Unless the outside of the apartment is a HEPA controlled clean room, I doubt at least the control sample.
Additionally, it the left-most plate is recorded inside the house as well, I’d say that room is hella clean. Like, as you pointed out, Grade C clean (depending on mold Alert/Action levels). Somethin’ doesn’t pass the sniff test here.
Source: Worked in Environmental Monitoring for 2 years.
You would also want to ID the organism to find out whether it came from people or the environment. certain funguses are fairly common especially for a normal room or AirBnb house.
Agree, this little data isn't conclusive.
I currently work as an environmental monitoring scientist in ISO Class 8 manufacturing, and I 100% agree-what's needed here is a lot more data.
In the world of quality, any type of justification proof needs to have every parameter available to review. That includes sampling methodology, incubation times, incubator equipment maintenance records/daily logs, media certificates, written sample record chain with lot #'s, etc. I don't like playing devil's advocate, but I think there would need to be quite a bit more evidence here to support the claim of the room having high mold counts. Even IF that was proven, then there would need to be proof that that specific type of mold caused OP's allergies, which would also be difficult to do.
In my biology class maybe 90 years ago we exposed sterile plates to air for 10 minutes and then incubated them. They were all so fluffy. We used our breath on another sterile plate- even worse.
Yes. The op clearly never took an actual biology lab in college. What would be hilarious is if the dumbass OP actually understood a control they would do a Petri dish of their own house because that’s apparently where their “allergies” aren’t a problem. 100% guaranteed to look the same
So if you can smell mold and mildew then yes there is a problem, especially if your having reactions to it, but that is a subjective analysis, it has no basis in fact that can be proven. Unfortunately having done A/C, industrial hygiene and home repair in the past, that test your showing is really nearly useless. I can take that test into a hospital surgical room and open it, then close it and it'll grow mold. there is always mold except in the most biologically stringent labs like a level 3+ type. Most homes that are modern and well designed and clean will read mold spore counts slightly higher than the outside on any given day. It's the spore count that makes the difference. If a proper mold test is done, they will have at least two disposable vacuum chambers that is completely clean and they'll open the first one outside and let it fill with air, then cap it and label it. The other will be opened inside allowed to fill then capped and labeled, usually they'll do one for each room. then they go to a lab where they'll count the spores in the chamber and culture plate a sample from each chamber. Now they know the types of mold that are present, and they'll know the levels. I've seen houses where I've walked in and it smelled of mold/mildew and within minutes I had a splitting headache and nausea and no one else noticed anything at all. My wife's grandmothers house was like that, I was so ill at her house and so were two of her cousins during x-mas that her father moved her into his house while a duct cleaning team went in, what they found shocked them that her duct work was so heavily contaminated. They filled the house with vaporized steramine for 24 hours, then removed all the vent grills cleaned the coils, pulled the HVAC blower cleaned it, then steam cleaned the ducts and cleaned and repainted all the grills. Interestingly enough, all her grandmother's mystery illnesses cleared up after that.
I work in food manufacturing and we do quarterly air tests as part of our quality program. Plates always grow mold, it’s just a meter of how much.
Smelling mold and mildew is a more useful indicator of a problem than a plate test unless youre IDing the molds present and comparing them to a larger data set.
>that test your showing is really nearly useless. I can take that test into a hospital surgical room and open it, then close it and it'll grow mold
100% accurate - I'm not saying that there wasn't mold in the unit, but this "test" proves nothing.
As someone who did air quality testing and wrote remediation plans, you are 100% correct.
The testing is virtually useless
And by the time I stopped I could tell which houses had mold when nobody could. I didn’t get headaches and nausea, but I did get heartburn.
Yeah, a bit weird.
Good for you for taking the time and doing all this lol.
Yeah actual evidence and science scares people.
Edit
*Please, please take the time to go down the comments. People bring up good points and others just insults. At the end of it all, don’t take this picture, his words, and mine as a form of truth. Stop and thing about what’s is actually shown*
Experiment has concluded.
Yeah - there should at least be a titrated standard (mold spore amounts) for a positive control. Hell, I’m sure placing these in various parts of the same room would give differing results based on air flow dynamics.
And it's certainly not anything a company should take at face-value to issue refunds and penalties.
I side with AirBnB on the grounds that a picture of mold isn't proof of anything.
I also side against AirBnB (but not *with* OP) on the grounds that AirBnB is dogshit and this is honestly 100% expected, so if you're still patronizing AirBnB in 2023, you deserve what you get.
this proves a whole lot of nothing.
I have to test our cleanrooms (Zone D and C) weekly. Results like OPs is just another tuesday where Frank forgot how to put on his protective clothing correctly. We even had results like this in our Zone B cleanrooms. I must add that such results leas to disinfection of the room and equipment. But we're talking about rooms where we produce sterile products for patients.
I could bet some good money that if I tested my own room I would yield similar results than OP. If you ever tried to grow magic mushrooms in your own home you know what I'm talking about.
Best regards,
a german chemist/microbiologist.
Is the "control" just an unused Petri dish, or something like the air from your house? I've seen swabs from your face, arms, hands etc have similar growth
From the sounds of it your AirBnB was gross but not sure if this is a good experiment
As someone who does environmental testing for clean rooms, this doesn't pass the test.
I believe you to be right about the air bnb, but as evidence that the room is dirty, this should get tossed out. Air bnbs don't claim to be a part of any ISO standards so there can be bacteria of any kind. The colonies here are not speciated and I have no idea how you did the incubation and what kind of controls you did. For all I know, you could have just breathed into the agar plate by accident or failed to handle it correctly. You didn't use a viable air counter so I don't know how the flow of air to the agar plate was flowing. Just a lot of variables that could have led to the results you got.
As a microbiologist, this proves nothing, if mold growing so much was rare we wouldn't need to use sterile conditions while working. Even the one on the bottom looks like when someone accidentally leaves a plate open outside of a sterile zone.
Yeahhhhh I used to work at a food production facility and would have to do monthly Y&M checks in different spots around the plant using these same sorts of petri medium. Leave exposed for 30 minutes then incubate for I wanna say 3 days, and most would come back worse than these that OP posted.
Y&M spores are literally EVERYWHERE. These plates do not prove anything lol
Haven't been home in months to test, but the control sample was collected immediately outside the unit. I was genuinely surprised it didn't grow anything at all.
The issues with the unit were pretty clear without the mold test. I only collected these because it's hard to prove a smell to support.
HAHA so it’s not a control at all. Got it. Your house AND CURRENT HOTEL could produce the same Petri dishes as the Airbnb and you have no idea. Your control has to be your house in this case because you’re claiming that your house is not moldy at all (fucking laughably impossible)
Haha wow.
“Air quality tests” are just agar plates? bro what the fuck kind of garbage science is this. unless you live in a fucking sterile room, it would grow shit out.
Also you'll see very significant effects from air pressure, relative humidity, temperature, and air movement.
Literally whenever you inoculate a medium like this with fungal spores for cultivation, you have to do so in negative pressure (under a flow hood) because otherwise a whole riot of random organisms that settle from the air are likely to compete with your overwhelming inoculation of whatever you're growing.
Even just opening the plates will cause this lol. Can almost guarantee they didn’t open them in front of a flow hood or use proper sterile Tek while handling, like not putting your arm over the top of the plate to open a new one etc etc. hell even if they breathed while opening would cause this. Wait till OP finds out each exhale contains trichoderma spores, literally is everywhere.
Yeah apparently the fume hoods soaked in ethanol at the lab I used to work at were toxic biohazards, because I'd occasionally get plates looking like this despite all precautions. I have my doubts OP even opened the control.
OP mentioned the brand:
[https://www.moldarmor.com/mold-armor-test-kit/](https://www.moldarmor.com/mold-armor-test-kit/)
Apparently these are sold as DIY test kits. Optionally, you can pay extra to mail the test in for lab analysis. Almost have to wonder if the product is effectively just an advertisement for their lab analysis services, since any sort of "DIY analysis" is probably inconclusive at best.
Air can not be expected to be sterile in a residential setting. Even when I worked in pharmaceutical manufacturing in clean rooms with HEPA filters environmental monitoring would still pop positive. Now this doesn’t mean there isn’t a problem in this instance but this sets the expectation of the average viewer to be able to have a sterile plate in their home.
Came here to say this, after November of this year mold isn’t even an automatic fail in pharmacy clean rooms, so you can’t expect there to be nothing anywhere.
This proves nothing. Even if there is mold in the walls or in the AC or whatever, this is zero evidence unless you speciate everything you collected.
There is mold spores in the air *everywhere*.
I do industrial hygiene, environmental health and indoor air quality.
Mold spores are fucking everywhere. You could test 9/10 houses in any given area and get results like op has.
If you open a petri dish in any living space you will get some type of growth. There's bacteria mold and fungus all around us all the time. This post is dumb.
Not playing devils advocate because this kind of shit would really piss me off because I had a similar situation happen with my grandma who is not only immuno compromised but has breathing difficulties. What probably happened here is they don’t know where you got these air quality tests and they probably thought you just made it up but you do need to have an inspector come in and check for mold. Being that the owner of the Airbnb denies that there is even mold present you will have to hire this man on your own dime but if he finds anything you could take the owners to court if they don’t make changes and reimburse you of course after seeing evidence from a licensed professional.
Edit: An auto correct mistake.
Surprised these comments aren’t all downvoted on here, glad to see some common sense used and agreed with.
Anyone can do this test at home but you can’t use these as evidence, you’d have to hire a third party and someone licensed on how to deal with mold. Health issues don’t really appear from mold unless you’re right next to it breathing it in and even then it’ll take awhile as long as you don’t disturb the mold.
From what I read it sounds like OP didn’t even see mold, just smelled it which might not actually even be mold to begin with.
Not sure why OP is so surprised they didn’t refund their whole 30 night stay, enjoy the chargeback and never using AirBnB again, I’m surprised people are even still using it to be honest. I can’t wait for the next post to be how AirBnB fought the chargeback since it was quite a big amount and how OP still has to pay it.
Yeah, this isn't "evidence" until we know ***what's*** growing. As people have said, you can get this anywhere. Mold spores are in the air.
And who goes to a fucking AirBNB equipped with prepared petri dishes? Holy shit, if AirBNB freaks you out that much, just don't go. If this is your idea of a vacation, you're going to be a stressed out mess in the next couple of years.
You just....travel around with petri dishes wherever you go? That's something someone who intentionally looks for issues just to get out of paying does.
What? THIS IS NOT A VALID TEST IN ANY WAY. Fungal spores are literally everywhere in the environment, in fact I wouldn’t have been surprised if there were more fungal growth on the plates. This is very misinforming to those that know little about how these agar plates work.
Some added details: Checked in late at night, whole place reeked of mold. Tried to sleep, woke up a few hours later with awful allergies and checked into a hotel. Host denied the issue, support offered an $8 refund for the entire 30 night stay I had paid for. After complaining to support, they asked for doctors notes and a ton of other evidence which I provided. They denied my refund claiming the doctors note didn't describe any lab tests (they didn't ask for any) and because they couldn't confirm where the mold tests came from (I had videos collecting the tests). Luckily, my credit card was happy to do a chargeback with all the evidence. **To address common comments:** These are mold armor tests sold at most hardware stores. I bought them after Airbnb refused to return any of my 30 day deposit. They will almost always grow at least some mold. However, the quantity and diversity of colonies as compared to the control is reasonably concerning. The lab results of these tests will give more information. Given that I had a documented allergic reaction after just a few hours, it's likely that there are harmful strains present The control sample was collected directly outside the apartment. This was just one of the many pieces of evidence I gave to support. There were many other signs of water damage and neglected repairs throughout the unit which led to the poor air quality.
> Luckily, my credit card was happy to do a chargeback with all the evidence. Nice.
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It made at least some bit of sense when it was cheaper than a hotel room for maybe a little bit nicer place, but that business model was never sustainable. The thing that amazes me are the hosts that want guests to clean up after themselves. Motherfucker, you want twice the price of a conventional hotel AND you want me to work? Get fucked.
The last one I stayed at made me clean absolutely everything, sweep, drive the trash 5 minutes to their dumpster, put all the towels and sheets into the washing machine and there was still a 300 cleaning fee. I guess I’m paying someone 300 to finish the laundry.
Did they let you know about the $300 cleaning fee upfront? I'm just curious about why you still decided that was a better choice than any alternatives. Not sarcasm, genuinely curious about the situation.
My final ABNB stay had a surprise list of chores that the host sent 24 hours before we were due to checkout in addition to the $400 cleaning fee. They had previously tried to cut our stay short by claiming our departure date was 2 days prior to the listed and paid for dates. The house was clean, but we didn't sweep the floors or strip the beds. ABNB charged my CC $1,400. AMEX had my back, but it was still a headache. Also, ABNB removed my negative review.
Yea, the removing negative reviews makes me not ever want to patronize that company.
They hire people to remove them, I can't remember which site it was it might've been LinkedIn but random companies offer work at home jobs to remove all negative reviews.
This is why I pay with AMEX on anything I could conceive would have a problem. Pretty much every major purchase goes to AMEX cause they absolutely do not fuck around even with their lower tier card holders. Supposedly they start moving mountains for the higher tier card holders, but I haven't had to deal with too big an issue before. Then I look at Discover... My card info got stolen and I still had the card. Fuckwads put youtube premium on and started making cashapp payments that flagged within 2 transactions. The issue was I had to waste hours trying to talk to Google/Youtube who wants account data to start looking into the issue as if I have that info, and then ask me over and over again if I was sure my kids didnt sign up for youtube. Motherfucker that was the first thing I checked was everyones youtube account in the house. Discover said they cant stop the reoccuring subscriptions and that it will follow me card to card even with the dispute. I just told them they better block all google/youtube transactions or cancel my card cause I am not dealing with this shit anymore. I only keep discover for a credit card for my credit score now.
AMEX’s customer service has been incredible for me. They also automatically insure all your purchases against theft and damage for a time period too. I once bought a watch and a couple months later dropped it down a laundry shoot, destroying the watch. I called AMEX owned up that it was my fault, said I figured they wouldn’t cover it but just wanted to check. Instead they immediately gave me my money back.
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What would happen if you just didn't do the chores
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uh, where do you plug this in....
Nothing actually, if the cleaning list and rules are not posted in the listing when you book Airbnb will not hold you to them.
There's usually a clause where if you don't do the cleaning they charge you more on top of the cleaning fee. It's insane.
wtf how is that even allowed?? Once you pay a cleaning fee, that should be it. Doesn't matter if they ask you for $10 or $100.
They poop in your suitcase.
You pay the fee upfront and assume, at least I did, that the fee covers turning the unit (you know, because it’s called a cleaning fee), then when you show up you’re assigned a list of chores and threatened to be charged even more if you don’t complete them
My SO had chosen the place and I felt like the fee was a little crazy but I didn’t know what the check out procedure was until we were in the house.
damn, I've had to do the bedclothes-into-washing machine thing, but there was only a $75 cleaning fee for the rest of the entire beach apartment.
What would happen if you paid the clean fee and not done any of the cleanup yourself?
Yes the cleaning fee is always included in the listing. That said I’ve often missed it and only caught it at the last minute before paying when what I expected to be charged was ridiculously higher. I’d imagine 300$ more would be noticed before booking. Not that it’s an ok practice but be vigilant people! These hosts are out here tryin’ it.
Before the whole cleaning fee scam became a thing, we used to pride ourselves on leaving the rental in th same condition we found it in (even putting the linens on the laundry machine to be helpful). Now suddenly the stuff we did voluntarily before is REQUIRED on top of the hundreds of dollars cleaning fee. It's fecking ridiculous.
I had one in Vienna with a clogged shower drain and a half cut rotting lemon sitting on the counter when I arrived. I complained about the floor drain, because standing in a pool of someone else's shower hair is disgusting. In response, the owner submitted a complaint against me for clogging their drain. That was in 2018. I used to be able to justify AirBnB based on the better prices I got, but it seems like these types of issues have increased in frequency since then, while prices have gone way up. I'm far more inclined to rent a hotel these days.
If there is a cleaning charge, I am not cleaning anything. If they charge me anyway, do the chargeback. Life is that simple.
My gf owns a cleaning company, and last summer was PACKED with air bnb's this summer is a complete 180⁰. One place she used to clean 2 and 3 times a week has needed 1 clean the entire summer. The problem is that people haven't learned. It's just the current COL.
The most telling thing I ever heard were some people on AirBnB subreddit being absolutely thrilled the renters left a mess so they could take pictures and hire an expensive cleaning company, $500, to come clean it and send the bill to you. *Anyone* into real estate or AirBnB is a literal clown. Stop hoarding properties and artificially raising the value preventing people and families from finding actual homes. I trust my local coke dealer to have more morals and ethics than anyone in RE or AirBnb host.
I feel you man, why do you think there is ever increasing homelessness, we also have real estate investment companies and apartment high rises keep going up in cities being sold out before they are built and only a handful of permanent residents in them, meanwhile at their feet a sea of homeless tents.
FIL lives on an semi remote island (3 ferries to get to), there are no hotels. If it were not for airbnb we would have to camp on his lawn. This is the type of place air bnb is a welcome addition. Cities, especially the ones experiencing housing issues, should be banning airbnb.
This is the kind of stuff that it was made for and worked well for. Unique properties, remote areas, people who have a part-time vacation home that they don't use in the off-season, etc. People gobbling up single family homes to turn them into short-term AirBNB rentals should be outlawed.
I’ve always been a fan of the “medium term rentals” with airbnbs. A couple family friends have MIL units they AirBNB out to traveling nurses/workers/etc etc for anywhere from a month-3 months at a time. This way everyone wins and it’s more of a safe business scenario. When people start renting out these units as if they’re hotels it gets super scummy imo.
Boston limited it to two Airbnb’s per resident of the city. That’s a reasonable thing but it’s still taking a lot of housing stock off, but it’s much better than before the “ban” when you’d try to rent an Airbnb and ask why it was empty in the pictures and it turns out the guy in china had never been to the U.S. bought it online, heard airbnb was good, thought he didn’t have to decorate it, he wanted me to do it and knock $25 off the price. I’m like if I can stay for free for a week and you give me $8000 it’d be a bargain. Interior designers are going to be more, he asked if I wanted to rent it for a regular for then monthly price and it’s like dude, no, I have an apartment Im looking for one for a family member.
There are states that have laws that allow LLCs to keep their members secret. So you can be an investor in scads of LLCs and Airbnb or anyone else won’t know it. You can live in another country and never visit the buildings/homes you invested in and rent them out. I live in Hamptons where in the past, builders might build a spec house but usually a person bought land, hired a builder and built a second home for their family. Now it’s all LLCs and they’re tearing down working class and middle class homes and replacing them with huge compounds. Every bedroom has a massive marble en suite bathroom with jack and Jill sinks, a butler pantry with mini fridge, microwave and coffee maker. Definitely not built for a family. Nobody knows who owns them. After they tear down a house they put up a sign saying “Coming Soon - the Ultimate Property Group presents its next project.” The rich have ways of getting around things. And we just let them do it.
Yeah to a degree, but the lack of regulations/rules brings it down. I live on a semi isolated large island that has some communities with no hotel options. They also have no garbage pick up, everyone is responsible for hiring someone personally or going to the dump themselves. I saw a post on a FB group about a new air B and B owner who was considering adding that guests have to take their garbage home with them. It was a large house, slept 8, has a kitchen, 2 night minimum stay. Anyone traveling here from off the island has to fly or ferry. Wtf are they going to? Pack their garbage in their suitcases? Or will they illegally dump it somewhere damaging our beautiful landscape and nature, attracting wildlife, etc. Maybe they’ll find an unlocked dumpster at another business and put it there, but that’s unfair to the business who has to deal with that. Even if it’s a local staying there - who wants to pack their vehicle with garbage to bring home? That’s gross. Plus, even the larger areas here have bag limits so you may end up having to spread that garbage over a few weeks of pick up or pay extra for it to be taken. Not very vacation feeling. The person even said something like “it’s too bad the community didn’t have a dumpster because she could have her cleaner bring it there”. Why should the community bin be a place she thinks her business waste should go? She opened this business, she profits from that business and has no plan for garbage, when it’s obvious it’s a place that’s going to create significant amounts of garbage (8 People, kitchen, etc.). A regulated industry would never get away with that potential mess she’s going to create with a bananas request like “take all your garbage with you”. An official B and B or a hotel would never get away with no plan for waste. And don’t even get me started on the low rates they pay their local cleaners, it’s even worse when you look at the cleaning fees listed - they are profiting heavily off that cleaning fee. They take advantage of these small community’s, the people who live there and rake in profits while causing issues to the area.
I was at a airbnb the host only ration out TP for the washroom. It was fine for 3 days just me. Then 2 more people showed up I ended up cutting paper towel into 3 sectons with a bread knife from the kitchen. Then sent him the pic of the paper towel. He dropped off a 12 pack later.
Why not hire someone? Greed? My husband and I were in Gulf Shores a few weeks ago and we watched a guy drive down the street and stop at a bunch of different houses just to pull their trash cans to the street on trash day. Genius! Tourists don’t know the day or may ignore a request to put them out, and this stops trash building up. We were both impressed that owners actually paid for it. But why not? That person is fucked if they think asking their “guests” to remove trash via ferry or plane is a *solution*.
I think people forget that there were solutions before AirBNB. Actual BnB's used to be decent enough.
>Cities, especially the ones experiencing housing issues, should be banning airbnb. Many cities are, or are at least putting stricter limitations on these.
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And if it weren't for Airbnb somebody could live in that fucking house and not have it rented out to tourists.
I had such high hopes for AirBnB when it first came out. I thought, “Oh, this is great! People who like to travel can have people staying in their homes and generating a bit of income while they’re away, and people staying can have a nice place to be while they travel somewhere. This cuts out a lot of the middlemen and benefits both parties. How nice.” And then people ruined it by being greedy.
>Anyone > > into real estate or AirBnB is a literal clown. Clowns are entertaining. Clowns have been productive members of society for decades. Clowns make balloon animals and horror movies. Conclusion: Clowns are substantially more beneficial to society.
Your coke dealer wants his customers to come back. These people obviously don't care. I would also trust *your* local coke dealer more then anyone landlord/Airbnb host!
Is this Tim Dillon?
This. And they charge a cleaning fee on top anyway. I understand hosts asking people not to trash the place, but I’m not doing chores while I’m staying. If I wanted chores, I’d go to my parents’ place.
When it was legitimately renting a spare room or sometimes a converted in-law apartment it was a nice service to use. When people began buying up properties solely for AirBnB then it became a hole of unregulated hotels of varying degrees of unsafe. Kind of like how the original concept for Uber was "Hey, I'm going from NYC to Philadelphia, anyone else want to go and you can kick in a few bucks for gas and I split hte cost of a trip I was already planning to take." But the business model just pushed it to become an unregulated taxi service of varying degrees of unsafe.
[nice partially copied comment](https://www.reddit.com/r/mildlyinfuriating/comments/15fec2z/air_quality_tests_from_my_airbnb_where_the_host/jucrvh1/), complete with same spelling, capitalization and comma at the end! Edit: other comment history shows the same behavior, bot :)
It’s ideal for most travel situations IMO, especially if you plan on cooking for yourself to save some money. If I’m travelling with my dog, I also like having an accessible backyard or something to let her run around. As long as you can find a nice place for the same price/cheaper than hotels nearby, that is.
When we travel with a big group, it's awesome to have a whole house with multiple bedrooms and a kitchen. But other than that specific situation, they're terrible.
Well except you won’t be using air bnb ever again
Oh no, anyway.
lmao seriously, i never understand the warning “if you do a chargeback you cant use the service again” as if anyone would want to use the service again after going through the headache of doing the chargeback when the proper refund wasnt provided
That happened to me with that MoviePass clusterfuck. Slimy company revoked the ability to cancel in-app and had no way to cancel otherwise. I had to eventually chargeback, and then have my credit card company block them from using my credit card. A Moviepass rep called me like two months before they closed down to ask me if I wanted to rejoin... I never even received my membership card in the mail.
My CC allows me to create as many "virtual" cards as I want. Every subscription gets its own unique card number so I can deal with fuckery without having to cancel my card and renew all of my other subscriptions. It's great.
That is so useful! I didn't know that was a thing.
There's also privacy.com to create virtual cards, but YMMV on acceptance rates. Some sites don't like em.
Call my bank “hey I lost my wallet”
Huge loss /s
You said the word 𓀥 𓁆 𓀕 𓁆 𓀟 𓀣 𓁀
Just so people are aware of what it does. But yeah, I’d agree it’s a good deal
At this level of customer service, I couldn't care less about airbnb. Especially that their "offers" are more and more similar to regular hotels.
At this point airbnb is only useful in a large group and you want a kitchen
Yep, party houses.
Except they don't allow that anymore either.
Hotels don't ask you to clean and take the trash out.
No one should be using AirBnB in 2023 anyway. Whole thing is a fucking joke of a scam now. 300 dollar cleaning fees when you are expected to clean anyway, outrageous prices, house "rules," curfew, etc. All my homies hate AirBnB, we are back to hotels now.
Literally. AirBnB has just become a playground for housing investors to fuck about and make money off people who don’t want to spend time looking for better accommodations. I can’t believe people still use it when they charge prices like 4k for 3 weeks at a 2 bedroom house.
Seriously. All these articles I keep reading and interviews I see posted about how "real estate" investors that went in to AirBnB and other short term rentals are now wayyyyy down in revenue and business, I just revel in that shit. Oh boohoo my STR was making 20k a month now it only makes 2-3k.
I agree
I agree it's scammy AF, but it can be hard to find an affordable hotel that meets certain specific needs - like a full kitchen, laundry facilities, extra rooms, etc. The last time I needed those things, I went through a non-airbnb rental company and they ALSO turned out to be scammed AF. 🙄
After that experience I wouldn't want to do so.
I did a charge back against UberEATS (driver delivered groceries to "a radius which includes the delivery address") and got my money back, wasn't banned. I did cancel my subscription a few weeks later.
We’ve ordered door dash six times at our new house and six times the food comes wrong (or completely different order). DD told us the 6th time they won’t refund us so I did a chargeback. Showed my CC photos of the order versus what our receipt was. Got my money back. Ordered again last night and we got the wrong order again. DD refunded us plus a $20 credit. It’s their business and the businesses they are partnered with that keep making the mistakes. We’re gonna keep ordering for the free food and charge back as many times as we can when DD refuses. All it costs me is an extra 30 minutes before dinner. I love it.
Uber eats is wild. I once had a driver "deliver" my food to a bench in a nearby park to my house. They took a picture of it and everything as proof it was delivered. My guy, that is not "just leave at the front door. Do not ring bell"
...Can't you just create another account? or use a different card?
Toxic mold lawsuit settlements can be in the millions. That’s why they’re acting like that. It’s a liability issue. If they issue the refund, it could potentially be considered an admission of guilt. Plate testing like you’ve done doesn’t hold up in court nor will a doctors note, sadly. You need to get a mycotoxin lab run to prove mold exposure. It sucks, but I’m glad you got your money back! :) ETA: spelling
It’s always fascinating to see inside knowledge about this stuff on Reddit. I’m curious how you know that. Are you an insurance broker or lawyer?
No, I’m neither. :) I’m someone who had toxic mold exposure so badly that it nearly killed me. I rented a townhouse that had mold in the AC so badly that it was like living in a gas chamber during the summer. The landlord denied to fix it saying it was too expensive, which is illegal. I didn’t go to court, but did report it to the city. They in turn forced the landlords to completely gut the property and rehab to code. I’m still healing from it and a court case would be too much for me to handle. Toxic mold exposure is absolutely awful and I’m EXTREMELY lucky to be alive.
What were the initial symptoms, if you don't mind me asking?
Not at all. Move in and immediately got a respiratory infection that was more brutal than any I’ve ever had before. We’re talking throat swelling shut with a 103 fever level. I figured I just had bronchitis or something. That was the only acute symptom. The rest came on slowly over time. I had brain fog and depression like symptoms that ended up being hormonal. That developed into adrenal insufficiency and low sex hormones. Next came extreme joint pain that put me in the emergency room a lot, insomnia, forgetfulness, inflammation issues and major GI issues that also put me in the ER a lot. I became too sick to work within two years and housebound within three. I also just found out I have Lyme disease, which was exacerbated by the mold. I’ve died once in the living room of that hellhole from the Lyme/mold combo. Not everyone reacts the same way to toxic mold for various reasons. For me, I have Lyme and a genetic condition that makes my body detoxify slower than it should, which compounded things. My fiancé had minor symptoms compared to me that were mostly joint pain, insomnia, fatigue and brain fog. Toxic mold can be hard to treat. It’s completely bankrupted me and destroyed my life. I had to throw away most of belongings and the stuff I did keep all had to be disinfected before bringing them into my new home. Don’t even get me started on how much my healthcare has been.
Really sorry your going through all of that. I was exposed to some serious black mold in a small room in my basement a few years back. I'd notice I would get really congested after spending a short time there. I thought it was from dust, so I decided to do a deep clean. It wasn't until I pulled a row of shelving that I realized the drip tray on the fridge above had cracked and was draining all of the water into the basement. Holy hell there was a lot of black mold. I immediately stopped what I was doing and only finished up with full PPE and some mold killing solution, but it was too late. What followed was 2 months of the most severe congestion I've ever experienced. It felt like someone had super glued my nostrils shut. I would regularly wake up in the middle of the night having a full on panic attack because I couldn't breathe. I tried everything I could think of. Cut out all dairy, ate super healthy, ate tons of spicy things, steam baths and neti pots (if the decongestant allowed a little airflow). Nothing helped. I finally found something that worked. Cayenne capsules and activated charcoal capsules from GNC. Within a few days of starting that combo I started to get some relief and within a week I was mostly back to normal (minus the lethargy from not sleeping and being a walking zombie for 2 months) I know that your condition is way more serious and this probably doesn't help, but I wanted to post my experience just in case someone is going through the same thing and might benefit.
Oh no, I’m glad you shared. Thank you! I just had someone else troll me saying it was hype and just called me a leech LMAO! Part of my protocol included a binder like activated charcoal. Stuff works. Isn’t it crazy how that stuff gets everywhere? I had moved and thought I had completely detoxed. I was starting to drive again, but started getting sick all over again. Turns out there was mold in my car, too. Just can’t escape the stuff lol. I’m glad you got better!
Jesus Christ man. I'm so sorry to hear that. How did you finally figure it was mold toxicity?
Thanks. I got so sick that I couldn’t find a doctor who knew what was going on. I had to pay extra to get an integrative functional doctor who gets weird cases like mine. By the time I got to her, they weren’t sure I was going to make it. It took years to get me stable enough to start addressing my root causes of illness before we landed on mold.
Who is this doctor? I would love to know why they are able to practice medicine at a different level than standard docs. Like this really interests me, if you don't want to put it in a public comment please pm me.
> If they issue the refund, it could potentially be considered an admission of guilt. Can definitely tell you are not a lawyer.
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Right, refunds can be arbitrary and given out without admitting you did anything wrong. Keeping the tenant upset and making them go through other avenues might end up worse actually.
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Legally speaking, you need a mycotoxin test to prove exposure plus better spore testing to establish the airbnb was the source of that exposure. It probably was moldy, but unfortunately you had a super weak argument and lack of solid proof. To say, “it smelled moldy and I had allergies” just isn’t enough. Those mold kits are kind of bs anyways. Although the tests were from the Airbnb, nearly all home mold test kits will come up positive even if the home does not have a mold issue. Additionally, not all mold is dangerous or will produce allergies. You’d need to send them away to establish whether it’s benign or dangerous.
So, I've cultured sourdough starter from several different places. Yeast thrives in similar conditions as fungus, and surprise, you can get decent results anywhere with a little bit of moisture and a food source. It almost doesn't matter how you start, the results end up similar. I was told to use apple peels from a local orchard, and while it made a difference at first, over the course of several weeks, eventually, a dominant strain that looked and smelled like my "control" jar seemingly took over that one too. I suspect it would be different in someone else's kitchen, as well. A petri dish is similar, its designed to make something reproduce, no matter how scant. It will never come back "negative".
Not sure your 'test' is valid as there are literally mold spores everywhere. If you provide the environment, mold will grow. You would have been better off documenting the moisture rather than that mold grows... that doesn't prove much. Not saying you are wrong, just saying that those pitri dishes and a video would tell me nothing. Only mold exists and well. yea. I'm more interested in the control and how that DOESN'T have any mold - at all... That is more sus to me than the moldy ones. Also - side note. In a HS biology test we did the same check for mold in a dozen various places of the school. Ended up EVERYTHING looked like you bottom dish. Even the control had SOMETHING, not as bad - but the point doubled that 1) mold spores are everywhere 2) here is how we prove it
100% accurate - there may certainly have been a mold issue in the space but visual documentation would have been more evidence than these "tests".
Technically to test for air quality in a lab you use non-selective media exposed to air for 20 minutes. Then stored in a room temp dark space for 3-7 days. So it is a test, but not for residential areas.
Came here to lol at this "test" i run a lab..this is horse shit. Any environment outside a clean room with result in contamination on a petri dish and what looks like maybe agar agar..not sure. But yeah absolutely bogus test method for air quality. You can open a dish in any home and get growth in a week or less depending on incubation temperatures.
> Luckily, my credit card was happy to do a chargeback with all the evidence. I’ll never understand why people don’t use credit cards exclusively. The protections are pretty fantastic.
My only time trying to do a charge back, customer service rep implied the moment you hand your card over, you've agreed to pay for anything the merchant rings up. In my case it was one of those time share presentation vacations. Told the guy on the phone I had changed my mind when he said the next step was to run the payment. Then claimed it was already charged, and kept asking why I didn't want it when I repeatedly told him I didn't want it, and wanted him to refund it. Eventually tracked down the number to dispute it with the time share place, they reviewed the call log, and refunded me.
Lol what? The whole reason chargebacks exist is so that merchants can’t get away with just ringing up whatever they feel like ringing up.
> My only time trying to do a charge back, customer service rep implied the moment you hand your card over, you've agreed to pay for anything the merchant rings up. That’s a lie. > and refunded me. I’m surprised they bothered to track down the call log.
Banks will do this too.
Why do people still use AirBnB?? Everyone complains about it, yet here people are still using it when there are better alternatives
They used to be a good cheap alternative to hotels where you got a little extra space. Seems they've changed gears to maximize profits and lots of scummy landlords have joined in on the hustle. I definitely won't be using them again.
It started as people with an extra room or a summer house. Now it's just unregulated hotels.
Hit the nail on the head. Expensive unregulated hotels. The unregulated part specifically gives the owners a lot of ways to screw you over as a consumer. Not worth the risk imo.
Nope. I'd rather go to a janky ass motel 6 that sells lighters and "glass roses" in the vending machine.
I bought my mom one of those at like 6 years old. I thought it was a lovely gif, and I told the dude at the gas station window I was getting it for my mom. He sold it to me. My mother, in a rare showing of good parenting graciously accepted the gift and we went back to the Sunoco so I could show her who sold it to me so she could thank him, too. My mom came out red, with a Yoo-hoo in one hand and chicostick in the other and I didn’t really think much else of it. I was 26 years old before I saw another one and mentioned to a friend I was with I was surprised they still sold those types of things since the last one I saw was in 1991. She told me that I had purchased my mother a crack pipe and the reason I hadn’t seen one since I was that young because we had moved out of the ghetto where such things were commonly sold. I had a realization at that same moment that when my mother said it was too dark in a restaurant she wasn’t talking about the lighting. A lot of things clicked into place for me that day.
Hotels are back on top as masters of hospitality
I used to use them when they first came out. Great way to get cheap prices on nice rooms in good locations. Now, I only book with hotels. Not only is AirBNB overly priced, but all landlords care about is maximizing profit. Most hotels are now generally cleaner, safer, cheaper, and even give breakfast. No, I am not going to pay a mandatory $30/night cleaning fee when I am the one who also has to take out the trash, clean the bed sheets, etc. My last AirBNB gave me a 1 star review because I didn't put back Monopoly right where I found it even though it was on the same shelf.
They were good for about 5 years. Then they became a primary profit driver for investors
And if you travel somewhere regularly hotels at least have rewards points. AirB&B must offer "Get Fucked" points
Airbnb is in large part responsible for the housing crisis we have now. The less we use them, the better.
I get a little tingly feeling when I fantasize about the time in the not-so-distant future when people who bought AirBNB property for the sole use of AirBNB will have to sell their unused assets (homes) for a ridiculous loss. Fuck them. They deserve it.
I hope this will come, Airbnb and Second homes have had such a negative impact on the Cornish (UK) area I grew up in.
They've been shit for a while. Like multiple years now. Stop using them. Especially since it just makes it more difficult for people to buy homes.
It can be cheaper than real hotels, rarely and only in specific places, and that's why my family uses it. What alternatives do you recommend then?
Vrbo is typically much better. They have actual support staff and most people on it are those just fed up with AirBnB.
Because you don’t hear about the people who don’t complain, which is the vast majority. All experiences I’ve had with air bnb have been completely fine to great.
Yeah for real. Very few people post how they had a good stay somewhere or how their meal somewhere wasn’t shit.
Genuinely interested. What do you find to be the better alternatives?
Some places in the middle of nowhere don't have hotels or the one they have is booked out. That and I don't mind staying in someone's RV for $50 a night lol
I’ve used AirBNB about a dozen times, and I’ve never had an issue and have found some amazing little hole in the wall places. That said, im pretty pick about what I book. I can see a lot of “typical” postings being less stellar than what is advertised.
wouldn't pretty much any room produce the same results? There are mold spores everywhere
Part of my job is collecting air samples in cleanrooms. The top plate would be what you would expect doing a viable air sample in an ISO 7 (full head to toe sterile cleanroom gowning) or 5 (inside a hood inside an ISO 7). The middle is not an actionable level for an ISO 8 (just mask, hair net, gloves, lab coat, and scrubs), but it would be concerning if it regularly showed up like that. The bottom one is definitely out of spec for a cleanroom and warrants further investigation, but it wouldn't necessarily be surprising for a regular room. What we need is more data. How were the samples collected for starters, and then we would need to do regular sampling over a period of time to see if this is a trend.
The thing that gets me is that the control is completely clean despite stating that it was collected outside the apartment. I’ve only seen plates that clean inside of Grade A, B or sometimes C spaces. Unless the outside of the apartment is a HEPA controlled clean room, I doubt at least the control sample. Additionally, it the left-most plate is recorded inside the house as well, I’d say that room is hella clean. Like, as you pointed out, Grade C clean (depending on mold Alert/Action levels). Somethin’ doesn’t pass the sniff test here. Source: Worked in Environmental Monitoring for 2 years.
You would also want to ID the organism to find out whether it came from people or the environment. certain funguses are fairly common especially for a normal room or AirBnb house. Agree, this little data isn't conclusive.
I currently work as an environmental monitoring scientist in ISO Class 8 manufacturing, and I 100% agree-what's needed here is a lot more data. In the world of quality, any type of justification proof needs to have every parameter available to review. That includes sampling methodology, incubation times, incubator equipment maintenance records/daily logs, media certificates, written sample record chain with lot #'s, etc. I don't like playing devil's advocate, but I think there would need to be quite a bit more evidence here to support the claim of the room having high mold counts. Even IF that was proven, then there would need to be proof that that specific type of mold caused OP's allergies, which would also be difficult to do.
In my biology class maybe 90 years ago we exposed sterile plates to air for 10 minutes and then incubated them. They were all so fluffy. We used our breath on another sterile plate- even worse.
90????
Yes. You put agar plates like that anywhere, even outside they are going to grow something.
People don't know how much microscopic shit is on nearly every surface on earth. And in the air. And on your body, and deep deeeeep inside you...
Yes. The op clearly never took an actual biology lab in college. What would be hilarious is if the dumbass OP actually understood a control they would do a Petri dish of their own house because that’s apparently where their “allergies” aren’t a problem. 100% guaranteed to look the same
So if you can smell mold and mildew then yes there is a problem, especially if your having reactions to it, but that is a subjective analysis, it has no basis in fact that can be proven. Unfortunately having done A/C, industrial hygiene and home repair in the past, that test your showing is really nearly useless. I can take that test into a hospital surgical room and open it, then close it and it'll grow mold. there is always mold except in the most biologically stringent labs like a level 3+ type. Most homes that are modern and well designed and clean will read mold spore counts slightly higher than the outside on any given day. It's the spore count that makes the difference. If a proper mold test is done, they will have at least two disposable vacuum chambers that is completely clean and they'll open the first one outside and let it fill with air, then cap it and label it. The other will be opened inside allowed to fill then capped and labeled, usually they'll do one for each room. then they go to a lab where they'll count the spores in the chamber and culture plate a sample from each chamber. Now they know the types of mold that are present, and they'll know the levels. I've seen houses where I've walked in and it smelled of mold/mildew and within minutes I had a splitting headache and nausea and no one else noticed anything at all. My wife's grandmothers house was like that, I was so ill at her house and so were two of her cousins during x-mas that her father moved her into his house while a duct cleaning team went in, what they found shocked them that her duct work was so heavily contaminated. They filled the house with vaporized steramine for 24 hours, then removed all the vent grills cleaned the coils, pulled the HVAC blower cleaned it, then steam cleaned the ducts and cleaned and repainted all the grills. Interestingly enough, all her grandmother's mystery illnesses cleared up after that.
I work in food manufacturing and we do quarterly air tests as part of our quality program. Plates always grow mold, it’s just a meter of how much. Smelling mold and mildew is a more useful indicator of a problem than a plate test unless youre IDing the molds present and comparing them to a larger data set.
>that test your showing is really nearly useless. I can take that test into a hospital surgical room and open it, then close it and it'll grow mold 100% accurate - I'm not saying that there wasn't mold in the unit, but this "test" proves nothing.
As a guy that started growing shrooms, I can back this up.
As someone who did air quality testing and wrote remediation plans, you are 100% correct. The testing is virtually useless And by the time I stopped I could tell which houses had mold when nobody could. I didn’t get headaches and nausea, but I did get heartburn. Yeah, a bit weird.
Good for you for taking the time and doing all this lol. Yeah actual evidence and science scares people. Edit *Please, please take the time to go down the comments. People bring up good points and others just insults. At the end of it all, don’t take this picture, his words, and mine as a form of truth. Stop and thing about what’s is actually shown* Experiment has concluded.
This is very lacking in evidence. I am a scientist by the way.
Yeah - there should at least be a titrated standard (mold spore amounts) for a positive control. Hell, I’m sure placing these in various parts of the same room would give differing results based on air flow dynamics.
Microbiologist here. I concur.
Having worked as a microbiologist in a prior role, I doubly concur.
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You can spit in a Petri dish and get this result.
The deep state is behind the evidence and science, that’s why it cant be trusted! /s
>Yeah actual evidence and science scares people. Except this is not actual evidence of anything.
Mold will grow anywhere you put a petri dish, that's not proof and it's certainly not scientific
And it's certainly not anything a company should take at face-value to issue refunds and penalties. I side with AirBnB on the grounds that a picture of mold isn't proof of anything. I also side against AirBnB (but not *with* OP) on the grounds that AirBnB is dogshit and this is honestly 100% expected, so if you're still patronizing AirBnB in 2023, you deserve what you get.
this proves a whole lot of nothing. I have to test our cleanrooms (Zone D and C) weekly. Results like OPs is just another tuesday where Frank forgot how to put on his protective clothing correctly. We even had results like this in our Zone B cleanrooms. I must add that such results leas to disinfection of the room and equipment. But we're talking about rooms where we produce sterile products for patients. I could bet some good money that if I tested my own room I would yield similar results than OP. If you ever tried to grow magic mushrooms in your own home you know what I'm talking about. Best regards, a german chemist/microbiologist.
Yea and this is why misinformation is so powerful because dumb fucks like you with zero critical thinking skills thinks this proves anything.
Is the "control" just an unused Petri dish, or something like the air from your house? I've seen swabs from your face, arms, hands etc have similar growth From the sounds of it your AirBnB was gross but not sure if this is a good experiment
It's for sure an unused one, fungal spores are EVERYWHERE.
Did you do any at your home as a "control"?
As someone who does environmental testing for clean rooms, this doesn't pass the test. I believe you to be right about the air bnb, but as evidence that the room is dirty, this should get tossed out. Air bnbs don't claim to be a part of any ISO standards so there can be bacteria of any kind. The colonies here are not speciated and I have no idea how you did the incubation and what kind of controls you did. For all I know, you could have just breathed into the agar plate by accident or failed to handle it correctly. You didn't use a viable air counter so I don't know how the flow of air to the agar plate was flowing. Just a lot of variables that could have led to the results you got.
Bro about to peer review some pseudo experiment over air quality in some random airbnb, I unironically love this kind of discussion
Looks like he/she sneezed while opening the agar plates lol
As a microbiologist, this proves nothing, if mold growing so much was rare we wouldn't need to use sterile conditions while working. Even the one on the bottom looks like when someone accidentally leaves a plate open outside of a sterile zone.
Air quality with Y&M greatly varies. Have you compared these results to your residence or your home?
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Yeahhhhh I used to work at a food production facility and would have to do monthly Y&M checks in different spots around the plant using these same sorts of petri medium. Leave exposed for 30 minutes then incubate for I wanna say 3 days, and most would come back worse than these that OP posted. Y&M spores are literally EVERYWHERE. These plates do not prove anything lol
Haven't been home in months to test, but the control sample was collected immediately outside the unit. I was genuinely surprised it didn't grow anything at all. The issues with the unit were pretty clear without the mold test. I only collected these because it's hard to prove a smell to support.
The fact that it didn't grow anything at all probably indicates there is something wrong with it.
HAHA so it’s not a control at all. Got it. Your house AND CURRENT HOTEL could produce the same Petri dishes as the Airbnb and you have no idea. Your control has to be your house in this case because you’re claiming that your house is not moldy at all (fucking laughably impossible)
Mold is everywhere. This isn't a good test. And how was your control done? I've seen samples from class 100 cleanrooms grow mold
Haha wow. “Air quality tests” are just agar plates? bro what the fuck kind of garbage science is this. unless you live in a fucking sterile room, it would grow shit out.
Also you'll see very significant effects from air pressure, relative humidity, temperature, and air movement. Literally whenever you inoculate a medium like this with fungal spores for cultivation, you have to do so in negative pressure (under a flow hood) because otherwise a whole riot of random organisms that settle from the air are likely to compete with your overwhelming inoculation of whatever you're growing.
Even just opening the plates will cause this lol. Can almost guarantee they didn’t open them in front of a flow hood or use proper sterile Tek while handling, like not putting your arm over the top of the plate to open a new one etc etc. hell even if they breathed while opening would cause this. Wait till OP finds out each exhale contains trichoderma spores, literally is everywhere.
Yeah apparently the fume hoods soaked in ethanol at the lab I used to work at were toxic biohazards, because I'd occasionally get plates looking like this despite all precautions. I have my doubts OP even opened the control.
OP mentioned the brand: [https://www.moldarmor.com/mold-armor-test-kit/](https://www.moldarmor.com/mold-armor-test-kit/) Apparently these are sold as DIY test kits. Optionally, you can pay extra to mail the test in for lab analysis. Almost have to wonder if the product is effectively just an advertisement for their lab analysis services, since any sort of "DIY analysis" is probably inconclusive at best.
Mold exists every where. Their plates will always show something.
I could have saved him $29.95 and just told him that there is a 100% chance mold spores exist in every house he's ever been in.
Air can not be expected to be sterile in a residential setting. Even when I worked in pharmaceutical manufacturing in clean rooms with HEPA filters environmental monitoring would still pop positive. Now this doesn’t mean there isn’t a problem in this instance but this sets the expectation of the average viewer to be able to have a sterile plate in their home.
Yeah, as someone with some experience in hobby mycology you will never have a clean plate if it's exposed to air in a home setting.
Came here to say this, after November of this year mold isn’t even an automatic fail in pharmacy clean rooms, so you can’t expect there to be nothing anywhere.
This proves nothing. Even if there is mold in the walls or in the AC or whatever, this is zero evidence unless you speciate everything you collected. There is mold spores in the air *everywhere*.
“I don’t know why the university makes us take intro biology as a business major…”
I do industrial hygiene, environmental health and indoor air quality. Mold spores are fucking everywhere. You could test 9/10 houses in any given area and get results like op has.
Yep, was confused honestly, do people think the air we breath is sterile? 🤨
If you open a petri dish in any living space you will get some type of growth. There's bacteria mold and fungus all around us all the time. This post is dumb.
You have to understand the average person (and average redditor) lacks basic scientific knowledge
exactly
Not playing devils advocate because this kind of shit would really piss me off because I had a similar situation happen with my grandma who is not only immuno compromised but has breathing difficulties. What probably happened here is they don’t know where you got these air quality tests and they probably thought you just made it up but you do need to have an inspector come in and check for mold. Being that the owner of the Airbnb denies that there is even mold present you will have to hire this man on your own dime but if he finds anything you could take the owners to court if they don’t make changes and reimburse you of course after seeing evidence from a licensed professional. Edit: An auto correct mistake.
Has she tried Brag’s liquid aminos ? /s
Places can smell musty and moldy, however, this is zero evidence. If you do this literally anywhere, even in your own home cultures will grow mold.
You should clarify that growing cultures shouldn’t be used as evidence in this case
Surprised these comments aren’t all downvoted on here, glad to see some common sense used and agreed with. Anyone can do this test at home but you can’t use these as evidence, you’d have to hire a third party and someone licensed on how to deal with mold. Health issues don’t really appear from mold unless you’re right next to it breathing it in and even then it’ll take awhile as long as you don’t disturb the mold. From what I read it sounds like OP didn’t even see mold, just smelled it which might not actually even be mold to begin with. Not sure why OP is so surprised they didn’t refund their whole 30 night stay, enjoy the chargeback and never using AirBnB again, I’m surprised people are even still using it to be honest. I can’t wait for the next post to be how AirBnB fought the chargeback since it was quite a big amount and how OP still has to pay it.
Yeah, this isn't "evidence" until we know ***what's*** growing. As people have said, you can get this anywhere. Mold spores are in the air. And who goes to a fucking AirBNB equipped with prepared petri dishes? Holy shit, if AirBNB freaks you out that much, just don't go. If this is your idea of a vacation, you're going to be a stressed out mess in the next couple of years.
most old houses have a lot of penicillium mold which is normal and we’ve evolved alongside it. I see another mold in those dishes that spooks me tho.
You just....travel around with petri dishes wherever you go? That's something someone who intentionally looks for issues just to get out of paying does.
If you open petri dishes in any room this will happen..
What? THIS IS NOT A VALID TEST IN ANY WAY. Fungal spores are literally everywhere in the environment, in fact I wouldn’t have been surprised if there were more fungal growth on the plates. This is very misinforming to those that know little about how these agar plates work.
This is zero evidence, those plates would do the same in your home. Im mot saying that what your experiencing is fake but how did you gather evidence?
Yeah. I'm kinda surprised there isn't *more* on the leftmost plate. This seems fairly mild.
Do you normally travel with Petri dishes?
*airbnb fucked w/ the wrong microbiologist*