💣Our first Airbnb was grimy and dangerous. Here are 7 things we do differently now

Here's how to scrutinize listings, ratings, and photos to spot red flags, read reviews like a pro, and avoid surprises.

We should have packed some cleaning products for our first Airbnb.

In 2015 Paul and I took a trip to Ireland with my parents. In Dublin, we booked an Airbnb that was described as “charming” and in a “great location.” The great location part was true.

The place was a little light on charm though. And clearly, the Airbnb cleaning fee we (and other guests) paid wasn’t for a professional cleaning.

The utensils, stove, shower, TV remote, and furniture were all covered with a layer of grime. The host offered us open containers of food that was left over from previous guests.

Alarmingly, when someone took a shower, water leaked into a light fixture in the kitchen below. I’m not an electrician, but that doesn’t seem safe.

Plus, every room reeked of cigarette smoke, but that was on us. As Americans, we’re not as accustomed to smoking as Europeans are, and we didn’t check the listing carefully to see if smoking was allowed. It was, and the place smelled like the bottom of a wet ashtray.

Here’s the thing. My mom and I read through the reviews carefully. I read them again afterward, just to double-check. No one who reviewed the place mentioned that it was dirty and dangerous. To us, it was almost bad enough to abandon it and check into a hotel.

Here’s what I do differently now.

💯 1. I look for really high reviews

Anything under 4.8 is suspicious. Guests often meet their hosts in person, and they’re inclined to like each other and to leave positive reviews. Most of us want to give hosts the benefit of the doubt. Plus, you don’t want to get a bad review yourself and have hosts not accepting your requests.

✔ 2. I check how the reviews break down

Airbnb reviews include:

• Communication

• Check-in

• Location

• Accuracy

• Value

• Cleanliness

So a host could get a 2-star rating for cleanliness and 5 stars for everything else and still end up with a 4.5-star overall rating. That place we stayed in Dublin? Last time we checked, it had a 3.8-star rating for cleanliness. That’s a big red flag.

📕 3. I read all the reviews carefully

Dig into the longer reviews—those are the people who took the time to share their honest experiences. I look for soft language that points to a problem. People will write things like “dated” or “could use a refresh” and that might be exactly what they mean. Or they could mean the place could use a good cleaning.

📆 4. I see whether people come back to the same place

Of course, people don’t always return to a destination. But when someone writes that it’s their second or third time staying at the same Airbnb, that’s a stronger recommendation than just about anything else they could write.

👎 5. I don’t discredit any negative comments

In the past, if I read 10 comments and nine were positive , I assumed that 10^th person was a complainer. Nope. Those are the people you want to trust.

📸 6. I scrutinize the photos

I look at the listing on a computer monitor, not on my phone’s tiny screen where it’s tough to make out the details.

Still, what’s tough is to notice what’s NOT in the photos. For example, we stayed in a nice-enough Airbnb in San Miguel de Allende in Mexico in 2021.

I could see a small kitchen in the photos—fridge, sink, microwave and coffee maker. So I assumed there would be a small table and chairs where you could sit and have a drink or a snack. Nope. There wasn’t a table or even a desk in the entire place.

When I looked back, though, I could see the photos were accurate. Nothing showed a place to sit and eat. Now I know to look.

📞 7. I speak up when something’s missing

In that San Miguel Airbnb the coffee maker and microwave were missing when we got there, and the bathrobes mentioned in the listing weren’t there either. I contacted the host and he replaced them right away.

---

Our Dublin experience was so off-putting that we stayed away from Airbnb for years. But there are a lot of benefits compared to a hotel, if you’re in an area where Airbnb gentrification isn’t an issue:

• It’s nice to have room to spread out especially, if you’re traveling with a group or as a family.

• It’s almost always less expensive than a hotel, especially if you would otherwise need two or three hotel rooms.

• It’s convenient to have a kitchen, even if you just stock a few snacks, drinks and breakfast foods.

Our latest Airbnbs have been a lot nicer, and scrutinizing the listings has helped.

We stayed in a lovely three-bedroom, three-bathroom Airbnb in the center of Mexico City that was clean, spacious, safe, and quiet.

On another trip to Mexico City, our Airbnb in Roma Norte was almost perfect, with a 4.95 overall rating with everything rated either 4.9 or 5.0.

How to get around Mexico City on the Metro