[NewChief]

We use it constantly traveling as a family. We had our first "bad" experience on a trip we just returned from. Our host notified us two days before we were supposed to travel to her town (we were already on the road at a different town) that the city sewage had backed up, making her house uninhabitable for a couple of weeks at least.

This was problematic because we were heading to Santa Fe where the International Folk market was taking place, which is the largest event of the year there and makes for totally full lodging city wide. It was even worse because I found out in the morning while I was in the lift line at Evolution Bike Park at Crested Butte. Kind of screwed my morning up as my wife and I were texting back and forth trying to find lodging while I was supposed to be focusing on shredding the gnar on my sweet downhill rig, brah.

We cobbled together a stay at a place prior to the folk market taking place, and lucked into another place that had just put their listing up 15 minutes prior to us booking it (total luck that we found it). AirBNB also gave us a $150 credit for our trouble, which was awesome. It could have turned out worse, but the whole experience turned out really well.

Things that we've learned:
1) Read reviews, but take them with a grain of salt. The reviews will generally let you know of any glaring issues with a place (bad neighborhood, too small, misleading copy, etc..). As anyone who reads online reviews knows, though, some people are just whiners and complainers, so don't let a bad review or two throw you off a place that appeals to you.

2) Make SURE you look at whether it's a whole house or a portion of a house or a room in a house. Some people don't care, but I don't really want to share a living room with the owner of the house. If you don't read closely, that can happen (happened to my wife on a recent business trip to Denver when she let her business partner book... she had to pass through the dude's living room to go in/out and he was sitting there vaping resin every time she went in / out).

3) If you want good reviews as a renter, clean the freaking place up a bit before you leave. It's not a hotel. You don't have to wash all the sheets and scrub the floors, but picking up, doing the dishes, and maybe sweeping the floor will make people very happy. I'm a 5 star with glowing reviews. And I'll say that it makes a difference. I had someone cancel a place on me when we first started using, because I didn't have any reviews at that point and was traveling with children. I think she was just leery. Since I've had glowing reviews in my profile, though, we always get accepted to anywhere we try to rent.