In my last entry I made a grave error. In talking about visiting the monument to the “forgotten patriot” George Mason I forgot what his name was mangled his name, and called him James Madison. Madison was of course the 4^th President of the USA. Yes, I had to look that up.

In penance for my transgression, here is a brief overview: Mason was a Virginia landowner of vast estates who had a hot temper and loved wine. He was the father of nine living children, and one of the oldest politicians at the Continental Congress. The main reason he was “forgotten” is because he’s one of three men at the Continental Congress to refuse to sign the Constitution. He felt it didn’t go far enough, and wanted an end to slavery right away. His work on amending the constitution eventually became the basis of our current Bill of Rights. He completely pissed off his once good friend and neighbor George Washington because of his refusal to sign, and both men were pig-headed enough to never reconcile. His writing on individual human rights also greatly influenced Lafayette’s “Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen,” early in the French Revolution – in fact, the resemblance is so close, you could call plagiarism and not be off the mark. There’s a bas-relief of Mason in the chamber of the US House of Representatives. It’s located above and to the right of the speaker’s chair; he and Jefferson are the only Americans recognized there, in company with great lawmakers across the ages.

So, mea culpa, Mr. George Mason. You do have one of those names though… just saying.

Now as promised in my last blog, on to our misadventures with VRBO and Airbnb. Disclaimer: Prior to this trip, I’ve never had issues with either.

Here’s what happened:

Our first DC rental through VRBO was a gorgeous brownstone off Logan Circle. Great location, three stories, built in 1879, renovated with style. Plenty of room for the six of us, and a claw-foot bathtub. I’d booked it as soon as we found out the cancelled 2020 GWU graduation might happen in May of 2021. So I reserved it 10 months ahead of time. Paid the deposit. All good.

Then came May of 2021, 15 days out from our arrival. We paid the balance due. All good. I communicated with the host via email to check and see if there was a blender on the property. Got a nice reply of “well if there isn’t one, we’ll get you one.” Wonderful!

Then.

SIX DAYS before we were to arrive, (and all six of us had our plane tickets of course), BING my phone indicates an email has arrived. I look at it, look at it again, and burst into hysterics. Why? Because the HOST HAD PULLED THE UNIT FROM THE RENTAL PROGRAM.

Yep. I didn’t know they could do that either if all your money was paid. I checked. Oh, yes they can. VRBO returned our money, and even suggested (bad suggestions) two places we could squeeze the six of us into. But we were in trouble. Even though at this point GWU had postponed their in-person graduation again, lots of other colleges with thousands of kids graduating in the DC area hadn’t. And the Smithsonian museums picked that weekend to start reopening. There weren’t a lot of places for six people to stay on such short notice.

Our son found one, however, which leads me to my next horror story, this one about Airbnb, specifically a company who uses the platform, called Namastay.  I recommend you Namastay away. They own lots of apartments. Don’t use them.

Here’s why: They don’t care about you.

Granted, we had to book quickly, or we would’ve seen the 1-star reviews buried in the comments.

This particular Airbnb was in an apartment building in a changing area, quite close to Union Station in DC. It had a handy Walmart at the base of the building. I know that sounds like the beginning of a joke, but it actually was handy having the Walmart downstairs.

This recently renovated apartment building had a fob to get in the door and make the elevator work. Room keys were electronic. We’d noticed in the comments that Namastay only provided one key and one fob to their unit, no matter that it accommodated six people, who might presumably have different schedules. We were kind of hoping this might’ve changed. No. Oh no. It was worse.

My husband and I arrived in the lobby at 4pm. We said hello to the very lovely front desk receptionist, and let her know we were checking into room 102.

“Oh, that’s Namastay,” she said. “We have so much trouble with them.” If our lives had a handy soundtrack, the music would have gotten scary and dark at this point.

She goes and checks the key/fob situation, as Namastay told us those would be located at the front desk. The receptionist comes back and tells us, “There’s no keys here for that unit.”

Two hours later, pacing the lobby, on the phone with Namastay, who first claim ‘there are a keys, the receptionist hasn’t looked hard enough.’ Then the story changes to ‘the cleaners must have taken it with them,’ and no, they can’t get a hold of them, it’s after 5pm now, and they’re shutting their office. Then the story changes that ‘maybe the cleaners left them in the apartment.’ So the receptionist has to go upstairs and look. No keys.

At this point I’ve pulled up “hotels near me” to see if we can squeeze in somewhere. Not having a lot of luck, as it’s graduation weekend in DC, which of course I KNOW, and why I’d booked our original lodging TEN MONTHS AHEAD OF TIME.

Namastay stops communicating altogether, since you know, they don’t care if we can get into the unit or not. Namastay’s offices are in Memphis, and its drinks time there. The receptionist is about to go off duty. Now there are four of us loitering in the lobby with our suitcases, unsure of what we will do next.

Here’s the good part of this story. The receptionist says, “You know what, DC is my town, and we don’t treat people like this. Hold on.”

She goes in back, has a conversation with the owner of the apartment building, who agrees with her that it’s just rotten that Namastay is doing nothing to help. She comes back with two brown-paper wrapped key cards. “These are what our maintenance men use. We’re going to trust you with them until the Airbnb people can straighten this out.”

So there it is. We ended up having a great time in DC on this trip. We experienced travelling mercies in the form of a kind, thoughtful, vacation-saving receptionist. But now you know why we will be hard pressed to ever chance VRBO or Airbnb again. I bet if George Mason had been around, he would’ve given them each a sound tongue-thrashing and a thump of his cane.