What can you do to avoid a situation like this? You could do what Alex Goldstein did. Which country has the best 'enhanced clean' rating from Airbnb? Check the rankings How to avoid having to leave your vacation rental If they'd had guests, she would have refunded their money quickly and helped them find alternative lodging. Two summers ago, their farm lost power for five days. No electricity is also a legit reason to bolt. 'I consider safety a dealbreaker,' says Scottie Vosburgh, who owns a vacation rental property on a small farm about 40 miles outside of Washington, D.C. Vacation rental owners generally agree that these are all valid reasons to leave. My family fled to the closest Holiday Inn. And it looked as if someone had ritually slaughtered a small animal on the kitchen counter. I once booked a vacation rental in Ottawa, Ontario, that checked several boxes.

I've heard from some guests who stayed even with the water running cold. Likewise, having no hot water is enough to end your stay. The owner said he couldn't fix the wiring quickly, so two days later, we left. On our first night, the temperatures dipped into the 40s in our apartment.

Whenever we switched on the electric heaters, all the apartment's fuses blew out. A day before, the apartment had developed an electrical problem. For example, I checked into a vacation rental in Lisbon last January. The absence of electricity is a dealbreaker. You have a limited time – between 12 and 24 hours from your check-in time – to file a claim. Vrbo's Book With Confidence guarantee suggests a property may be uninhabitable if it's 'significantly not as described, unsafe, or you are denied access.' (Of course, if you can't get in, you can't stay in it.) Airbnb lists several reasons for checking out before your check out date, including problems with the size, configuration, cleanliness, or features that are misrepresented or malfunctioning. But there's no universally accepted definition of 'uninhabitable.' When a vacation rental is uninhabitable, it's time to leave.

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