Cockroach Apocalypse

So, this was an event. It consumed an entire day and resulted and a small discount on the Airbnb.

It all started with a trip to Rio with three other fellows. It was Grace, Michele, and Graham- for future reference. We all booked this Airbnb that had glowing reviews. I’m talking like 2 paragraphs of praise. So, we arrive home one night and see a letter tucked under our door from an exterminator and just thought nothing of it because we were just guests and assumed it was an advertisement.

We woke up the next morning and Michele was making coffee. She went to get the sugar next to an open window in the kitchen. Out of nowhere this cockroach falls onto the lid. We obviously all freaked out except Graham who took it outside. These cockroaches continued to just crawl into the kitchen through this open window that lead out to the “service area”. That really just means the trash room. The window was made to stay open because it had a gas heater next to it. We were later informed that gas laws and regulations require an open window next to a heater like that.

We *by we I mean Graham* just spent all morning throwing them outside and had no way to prevent them from coming in. We eventually messaged the host and complained and she said she would send an exterminator from the company that had left the letter the previous night.

We tried to continue our day and I decided to take a shower. I got in and all was fine. I was slightly paranoid so I was looking all around expecting to find cockroaches and sure enough I peaked out to find a cockroach crawling up my toothbrush on the bathroom sink. I immediately hopped out of the shower and ran out of the bathroom in only a towel.

After that I began to get really upset because the cockroaches were everywhere. There was no way to escape them. We eventually looked out into the service area to find cockroach galore. It was so gross. They were alllll over the room that was directly next to the kitchen. The host later told us that the exterminators had fumigated all the other apartments in the building except ours so all the cockroaches came running to ours to find safety.

We began to look for hotels and hostels in hopes of finding something last minute, but it was all pretty expensive. The host assured us that the exterminator would come and it would all be okay in the end. So we all the left the apartment so that she could come to investigate with the exterminator.

We got home later that night and things seemed to be okay, but we were still finding the cockroaches here and there. I then messaged the host to say they had not gone away completely and she said she would send a housekeeper the next day.

After that it was pretty much all okay. There were not anymore cockroaches, but we did ask for a discount.

All in all we were given the review of “demanding” on Airbnb and I’m not gonna lie I’m a little salty about it.