If a guest had said ‘this is a rat-infested hovel’, frankly I would have taken it on the chin. As I wrote here two weeks ago about the coterie of rats which have taken up home for the winter at Kitey Towers, I could hardly have argued if a customer had taken issue with one of them running across her bed in the night.
But that didn’t happen. We got away with it. Just like we got away with the BB making German jokes all season only just out of earshot of German customers. In a way, what am I complaining about, now we’ve been done in by a customer with a grudge? Given the odds, we’ve had a good run.
In the end, no one saw a rat, or heard a German joke, or fell over in the shower that the BB still hasn’t fitted with a screen and which floods the en suite. What did happen was that a mysterious American woman called Cassandra booked into my Airbnb last month and, for reasons I cannot unravel, took a dislike to me and decided to ruin me.
I cried bitter tears at the injustice of it – why oh why hadn’t she just complained about the rats?
I call it Red October because the few stray travellers who come to Ireland in the rainy, dark days are thoroughly mad to do so.
Aside from a few nice Dutch and French couples attempting to go to Mizen Head to be blown off the end of the cliff, these winter tourists are invariably left-wing lunatics.
This woman, Cassandra, screamed danger as soon as she presented. She messaged a day before she was due to say she was on her way. Then hours later I got a ‘Whoops!’ She had messaged the wrong person – and she sent lots of wide-grinning emojis.
When she arrived a day later, she was alone, as I recall. I showed her to room 4, which is a newly decorated, five-star-rated room in Airbnb’s top 5 per cent of listings and labelled with a gold badge saying ‘guest favourite’.
I do remember she was rude to me and said ‘I just want to sleep’ and shut the door in my face as I tried to ask if she was having a nice trip so far. I now think she was ill. Flu or something.
I don’t remember anything else. Two weeks later, I was woken to a warning message from Airbnb saying I must rectify the ‘issue’ with my room. Her review was in, three stars, and it began by saying she enjoyed the complimentary breakfast. She went on to say unfortunately, this house was ‘badly infiltrated by mold’ (sic) and she had been made so ill that her ‘lungs were burning’ and her ‘eyes swollen’.
This mould couldn’t be seen, she conceded. It was invisible. It attacked her in the night, like a sort of invisible vapour, apparently. She concluded by warning guests not to stay here as it would affect their
health. Kaboom!
I was allowed to reply publicly, which I did. What could I say? I’m sorry you were so ill your lungs were burning, but I’m glad you enjoyed the complimentary breakfast…
I then entered the nine circles of hell by challenging the review and trying to get it taken down. I fought with the brain-shattering bureaucracy of Airbnb for a week. I sent in photos and videos showing the room was perfect. I offered to get a surveyor’s report. Nothing worked.
At one point I could have sworn an Indian chap in a call centre passed the phone to the Indian chap sitting next to him after telling me he was going to escalate my case to the senior case manager. I could have sworn that Indian chap then passed the first chap back the phone after telling me he was going to escalate it to an even more senior case manager.
I got the distinct impression and could clearly picture that I was just talking to a line of people passing the phone up and down the line, possibly while frying curries for supermarket ready meals or making clothes for well-known high-street brands.
No matter what I did, these poor Indians politely insisted that it wasn’t Airbnb policy to mind if her review was ‘not fact’. It is her experience, madam. Even if it is wrong, we cannot remove it. I am so sorry. Is there anything else I can help you with today?
Yes, I’ll have a chicken jalfrezi. And a bucket of poppadoms. I was suicidal.
I fretted and fussed and had hernias over it. I cried bitter tears at the injustice of it – why oh why hadn’t she just complained about the rats? I could have coped with that.
I searched the internet to try to find out who this Cassandra was. She had such an unusual surname there was only one of her in the world. Right, I thought, I’ll get a defamation lawyer to send her a letter.
Then I had an inspired idea. I couldn’t contact her on Airbnb because once a stay is over, the messaging doesn’t work. But I could bill her for extras. And in that invoice I could include a message.
So I put together an invoice for the extra room I had had to prepare for the night she told me she was coming, then didn’t, with a message pleading with her to see sense.
Well, a few hours after this went in, she got back to me all right. She was fuming.
‘The arrival day was an honest mistake,’ she said. Oh I see. Maybe the invisible mould was an honest mistake.
‘Now that you are making things up, and trying to extort me for made-up charges I wish I could leave zero.’ As in stars. Then she tried: ‘Stop harassing me.’ Yawn.
Then: ‘You’re trying to extort me for more money – I think Airbnb will have a bigger issue with that.’
Yes, I thought, I bet they will. But to my utter amazement, an Indian chap processing my invoice rang and said he had put it through. I was paid the €85.
It’s a Pyrrhic victory. I had to take the listing down. I can’t bear that review, and they’ve stripped me of my gold badges. I’ll have to start again from scratch and get 100 more five stars to get back to where I was.
So Cassandra shut my Airbnb down. But it cost her €85. Whatever the hell she had against me, I hope it was worth it.
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