Take care if you plan to rent using Air B&B. We have returned from a trip to Italy, ending with a three night stay at an apartment rented through Air B&B. The apartment was lovely and well furnished, except for the beds. There were two and they were so lacking in sufficient support that my husband's back went into spasm the night prior to our nine hour flight back to the US. We posted a review on the Air B&B site which has not shown up, although equally recent posts, all positive, are there.

We have heard nothing from Air B&B nor from the apartment owner.

For anyone with a back condition, know that beds with mattresses suspended above wooden slats will not make for healthful conditions. Ask about the arrangement before renting.

carol

Nonsense. It has nothing to do with the wooden slats. Maybe the matresses were too soft for you but it has nothing to do with how the bed is constructed, or with AirBnB. Much as I dislike AirBnB it is a bit much to say beware of the whole concept just because your husbands back spasmed.
I know the agony of a back spasm, and I know that all sorts of things can bring one on. SInce it was only on the last night his back spasmed it was probably ot the bed or the mattress anyway.

I'm very familiar with Airbnb reviews from both sides & have never known them to reject a negative one except once. It sounded as though it was from a crazy person & they rightly took it down. The tone of your review may be the reason no one is responding as they're normally very quick to deal with complaints. I recommend saving yourself further frustration by just letting it go.

Re-reading, it sounds as if you may have failed to actually post your review after writing it. Airbnb posts aren't checked for content before they appear but if deemed inappropriate & the guest or host requests it, they can on rare occasion be removed. If it never appeared that may be the simple explanation. Also, the company doesn't respond to reviews, you must follow up to receive a response. I received a night's refund once from Airbnb despite the host's refusal, when bathroom drains were a problem but had to make a formal request. As hetismij2 has mentioned, I think you're unlikely to evoke much sympathy in this case. Except for your husband's pain, which I too have experienced. But not because of a bed.

Sure if you're going to use direct rental websites it takes more research than reserving a room in a reputable hotel. Was this owner a "super host"? How many reviews were already posted for the property?

All the other reviews were positive? No one else mentioned the bad bed?

On the other hand, I am writing this from an absolutely marvelous AirBnB property in Rome.

Yes, our hostess was a "super" hostess and yes, there were positive reviews. No one else mentioned beds.

The advantage to renting a hotel room vs an apartment is a hotel can supply a board placed underneath the mattress, providing greater support.

Great! We too have had a splendid experience with Air B&B.

There is a British company that lists positive and negative comments about various apartment rentals, including information about the beds. I am not crazy about your dismissal of my concern with a dogmatic "Nonsense". You presume to know about these particular mattresses and their construction but I know about them from first hand experience.

My hope in sending the post I sent was not to elicit dismissal or misinformation from Fodor readers but to let people know about our experience.

You put the blame on wooden slats on the bed. Millions of people sleep quite comfortably on such beds. It is a perfectly normal bed construction throughout Europe. Wooden slats actually can provide better lumbar support than a sprung bed.
If you start asking people about their beds they will be somewhhat surprised I suspect.

The back spasm could have been caused by all sorts of things besides the bed, especially as he only suffered from it at the end of your stay.
I hope he is feeling better now.

Thanks. He is but it was a slow recovery.

Gosh. I guess it's nothing short of a miracle that I have survived decades of sleeping in a (perfectly comfortable) bed on wooden slats.

I know about these from decades of "first-hand experience."

My back is just fine, and IF I were advertising a place on Air B&B or anywhere else it would never occur to me to describe my beds in such detail.

Some people are just insanely picky about stuff that should just roll off travelers' backs. People like this shouldn't bother with Air B&B; they should pay big bucks to stay in premium high-end accommodations where their whims will be accommodated. The rest of us figure a bed with slats is, well, what happens a lot of the time in Europe.

Wooden slat bed tends to be more expensive.

The bed in my guest room is . . . on slats. Gosh. No one has ever complained.

My problem with your OP is it says beware of airbnb because one apartment has a bed you didn't like. I don't use airbnb much (only maybe 3 X ever) and have some issues w/ them as a business model/impacts. But that is a huge leap from 'We didn't like the bed' to 'beware of airbnb'.

And if the bed was so bad why didn't your DH's back go into spasm on night one or night two? Just maybe he slept crooked on night three???

It's perfectly reasonable and logical to make the point that if a bed is very important to you for health or other reasons, you're likely better off in a hotel and specifically a chain hotel. It's going to be very predictable and consistent with regard to bed/mattress quality. You'll have a good bed and a good shower. Most chains (even cheaper ones) have pretty high standards for those things. There are many great Airbnbs but consistency is not what they are about. And they are very up front about this in how they position themselves - unique experience, etc. In the end, they are a collection of random properties and even the great ones often have their quirks. They require some level of flexibility from their customers and if some things like type or quality of bed are non-negotiable, then Airbnb is not a good choice. Airbnb obviously wants their customers to have great experiences in their listed properties but they get there through a very different formula as compared to hotels where consistency in the core of the offering is a key principle.

I've always found beds with a solid base (slats or solid wood) under the mattress to be the most comfortable & supportive of my back, in spasm or not. Beds in Asia I discovered are hard as a rock in hotels that don't cater to westerners & my back was never so comfortable. Now it's mostly a hip & that's another issue but a hard bed, or even resting flat on the floor, always helped my back muscles relax.

I have two beds on slats and love them. Memory foam mattress on both, Yay Ikea. My king bed has a box spring but we are going to switch to slats when we buy new. I have a pillow problem. I like goose down and love duvets. Germany has the best bedding. Nice linens and towels and you get five stars.

Two points:

1) AirBNB reviews don't show up right away because they're supposed to be "double blind." The host and guest each have a certain number a days to write a review, and they appear after that point. AirBNB doesn't want the host to be able to see the guest's bad review and then write his own review trashing the guest in order to get even. Rather, each party has an opportunity to write a review without the other party seeing it.

2) OP's unfounded black-and-white conclusion that *all* of AirBNB is bad is getting lots of valid rebuke in this thread. Besides what's already been mentioned, it's important to keep in mind that one needs to do a valid apples-to-apples comparison when looking at AirBNB vs hotels. OP says nothing about what price point we're talking about. I'm wondering if OP got a $100 AirBNB in Rome and expects $300 western chain (Marriott, Hyatt, etc.) quality. You get what you pay for. The proper comparison is what kind of hotel you'd get for the same price as the AirBNB.

Somehow I assumed the OP was complaining of her review not showing after the time frame mentioned, the site is very clear on when the review will be posted. Silly me.