A complaint about a Paris Airbnb drew quick disagreement on Reddit after a guest said the apartment's toilet needed about 20 minutes to refill between flushes. The host reportedly brushed it off as "typical for Europe." Other travelers said that explanation did not ring true.
Here's what to know
The issue came up in a Reddit thread in r/Airbnb, where the guest was trying to figure out whether the slow refill was just a cultural difference or a real quality problem worth raising with Airbnb.
They said the delay was especially annoying because two people were staying in the apartment and both needed to get ready in the morning.
After messaging the host, the guest said they were told the refill time was normal. The poster pushed back, writing, "I do feel like 20 min is excessive though and maybe should have been noted in the listing." They later added that water pressure did not seem low anywhere else in the apartment.
Most commenters flatly rejected the host's explanation. One person wrote, "This is not typical, and you should be compensated," while another described the situation as "definitely excessive."
The traveler also noted that this had not happened during past stays in Germany, Italy, the Czech Republic, Spain, and Ireland, saying they had "never experienced this issue before."
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More background
The toilet was only one of the guest's complaints.
According to the poster, they arrived to find "no towels in [the] bathroom or toilet paper or sheets on the bed." They said the host did not reply until the towels and bedding were eventually found in a closet.
They also said the apartment's Wi-Fi shut off overnight on a timer, from 1 a.m. to 9 a.m. That mattered even more because, as the guest put it, "we had to work at like 7 a.m. remotely."
The traveler emphasized that the internet cutoff was harder to deal with because they had no phone service while abroad, making it harder to contact the host when the connection went down.
With towels, bedding, toilet paper, and internet access also in question, commenters saw the toilet problem as part of a larger upkeep and disclosure issue, not some quirky European norm.
What can be done?
Advice in the thread covered both immediate workarounds and steps the guest could take through Airbnb.
One commenter suggested the guest could "manually fill the tank by filling a pot of water in the kitchen and pouring it into the back." Another commenter told the guest to check whether the listing advertised "the essentials" and whether it mentioned the overnight Wi-Fi cutoff from 1 a.m. to 9 a.m., adding that the timed Wi-Fi setup could leave the host "out of compliance" if that restriction were not disclosed in the listing.
Where can I learn more?
Rental complaints like this often start with one broken fixture and turn into bigger fights over maintenance and disclosure. Here are a few similar stories about tenants and guests dealing with leaks, plumbing failures, water bills, and other rental disputes.
• A tenant battled a landlord over an astronomical water bill after an unpatched leak in a rental.
• Another renter pushed back after a landlord sent a monstrous water bill over a suspected leak.
• One tenant fled to a hotel after a bad apartment smell exposed plumbing trouble.
• A renter grew alarmed when shoddy gas stove plumbing looked unsafe and out of code.
• An Airbnb host sparked debate by choosing an induction stove for a new rental.
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