kim819•21d ago

The week my budget vacation turned into a $400 plumbing disaster in a tiny Airbnb

I booked this super cheap apartment in Florence for 8 days, like $45 a night cheap, thinking I was a genius. The third morning, I woke up to water pooling around the toilet base and a smell I can't even describe. Landlord didn't answer for 2 days, so I had to call a local plumber who spoke zero English and charged me $120 just to show up. Ended up spending $400 on emergency repairs and another $80 on a laundromat because everything smelled. The whole point was to save money and see the Duomo for free, but I just lost a bunch of cash staring at a leaky bathroom. Has anyone else had a rental fall apart on them like this, or is my luck just that bad?

3 comments

3 Comments

the_matthew21d ago

Gotta say @eric723, you're making this sound like a disaster movie but a broken AC and a falling fan is just a bad weekend, not a tragedy. You chose to leave early instead of just dealing with it. I've had a fridge die in a rental before, bought a bag of ice and powered through. A little humidity never killed anyone. The ceiling fan thing is a bit sketchy but that's what maintenance requests are for. Seems like people panic too fast over minor setbacks that are just part of traveling cheap.

alex_johnson20d ago

Oh man, that sounds like a nightmare, I'm sorry. I mean, a broken AC is one thing, but having a ceiling fan fall down in the middle of the night with kids around? That's genuinely scary, not just a minor inconvenience. I don't blame you for cutting the trip short, sometimes the whole vibe just gets ruined and you can't fix it with a bag of ice. It's one of those things where you pay for a relaxing getaway and end up more stressed than when you left. Hope your next vacation goes way smoother, you definitely earned one after that.

eric72321d ago

I remember reading your line about "lost a bunch of cash staring at a leaky bathroom" and that pretty much sums up travel sometimes. Had a similar thing happen in a beach house in the Outer Banks. We rented this place for a week, and by day two the AC unit just died. Landlord said it was 90 years old and we were lucky it lasted that long. Had to sleep with windows open and fans blasting while the humidity made everything sticky. The kicker was the ceiling fan fell down in the middle of the night. Scared the kids half to death. We ended up checking out early and driving home four days into the trip. Never got a full refund either, just a partial credit toward a future stay I'll never use.