Anonymous

A friend and I rented this 2-bedroom unit offered on Airbnb starting May 30. The first week we were there, we weren't in the unit during the day or evenings due to work, so only spent time in one of the bedrooms. The second week we worked from home and spent time for the first time working in the den where there were two sleeper sofas. We started noticing bug bites but thought they were mosquito bites. By the end of the second week, we were covered in bites. We noticed several what appeared to be beetles in the den near the couches but didn't connect that with bed bugs. When a couple of bugs crawled across our legs, we checked under the couch cushions and found food, trash, marijuana, bugs and eggs. We photographed the bugs, eggs and bites and emailed them to our host on June 17. She responded with a reply that we must have brought them and she wouldn't help us. She said the house was clean and the housekeeper had not seen bugs. 1. First, we could not have brought the bed bugs with us, because we had been quarantining from March 10-May 30 at home and had not traveled or been anywhere. Our personal house did not have any signs of bugs, and we did have any bites on our bodies before arriving at the airbnb. If we 2. The photos we took of the bugs show dead bugs and fully mature bugs. It takes bed bugs 10 weeks to mature, so they had to be on the premises before our arrival, since we didn't bring them. 3. Bed bugs can survive for over a year without a host. They live in cracks and crevices are hard to find. We found bugs and eggs under the sofa sleeper cushions. 4. The sleeper sofas in the den appear to the be the primary source of infestation. It’s clear when we inspected the sleeper sofa that it has not be cleaned recently based on the trash, food and marijuana we found, so her housekeeper would not have known of a bed bug infestation there. Texas Tenant Rights protect renters from bed bug infestations including refunding rent for the time you had to live with bed bugs. They also encourage renters to contact the board of health and the code inspector for situations that aren’t handled appropriately given the situation. Our Airbnb hosts was not accommodating or responsive. She didn’t respond to us for SEVEN days. In that time, we had to vacate the premises and secure our own alternative lodging. We incurred additional expenses to professionally clean our belongings. We requesting a refund of our rent paid to-date. On June 23, the Airbnb host finally agreed to a partial refund. She refused to refund us for rent for the days we lived there with bed bugs, per Texas law, but she refunded our rent from June 18th forward.

• Bedbugs Found
• Requested Refund