DEAR TRAVEL TROUBLESHOOTER: My husband and I checked into a rental home in Branson, Missouri, that we booked through Booking.com for our seventh anniversary. It was a complete nightmare! The whole place smelled of dog odor; there was dog poop in the unit and a grass pee pad that smelled of dog urine.
There were dog pee stains throughout the unit, and the carpet looked like it hadn’t been cleaned in years. There was dust all over and bugs in the bathtub. There also was a spot of pee (still wet!) on the couch.
When we booked the unit, it never said it was dog-friendly, or I would have never rented it because I have a pet allergy. We packed up our stuff and left to find a different place in the area to stay.
I’ve been going back and forth with Booking.com and Vacasa, the company I rented it from, for the past three days, and they refuse to refund our stay. A local manager of the Vacasa rental unit claims there’s nothing wrong with the property because they sent someone to clean up the mess, but I disagree. I took photos and videos of the place before we left for proof.
Please help me get my money back from these scam artists!
— Mary Brewer, Weldon Spring, Missouri
ANSWER: No one should have to stay in the rental unit you described. The home that you reserved on Booking.com, which was managed by Vacasa (a rental management platform), should have been clean when you checked in.
Typically, when you check in, and the unit hasn’t been cleaned (this happens sometimes), the rental management company will send someone over to remedy the situation. But I believe there are cases in which a rental unit is unsalvageable. Examples of this include finding black mold, a fire hazard, rodents — or the powerful stench of animal urine.
Yes, Vacasa could have cleaned the carpet and bathtub, but if you have a dog allergy, there’s no way it would have been enough. As you note, neither Vacasa nor Booking.com ever indicated that the rental home was pet-friendly — which, for someone with an animal allergy, means “do not rent.”
Ultimately, Booking.com is responsible for the quality of the unit. The company listed the home on its site, and your accommodations were not as described. I can see from your paper trail that you tried to resolve this with Vacasa and Booking.com, but neither stepped up to give you a refund.
A brief, polite appeal to one of the Booking.com executives, along with photos and videos of the rental, might have fixed this problem for you. I publish the names, numbers and email addresses of the Booking.com customer service managers on my consumer advocacy site, Elliott.org.
