Hello everyone,
I recently booked an Airbnb stay in a small studio apartment. The owner later told me the entire unit has no real windows: Just 2 narrow “air windows”, one in the bathroom and one in main studio that both feed into an indoor hallway.
I asked him to cancel after that because that that sounded like a safety hazard to me but he refused.
My question is, does anybody know the legality of this?
The law may vary by city. What city are you talking about?
The building I live in is a 100% legal and registered guesthouse, and it has several rooms that don’t have any windows so it must be legal here in Kaohsiung.
One option is to ask the owner to show you their Guesthouse Certificate. It’s very likely they don’t have one, which would make them an illegal business. That could be used for grounds to cancel your reservation and get a refund.
You may also search for the property in this website. It it’s not listed, then it’s illegal.
It sounds like in the US/Canada there are laws about egress and sometimes people have challenged based on this. I don’t know the law in Taiwan. I do feel like this info should have been in the listing but I don’t know what luck you’ll have cancelling or getting refunded.
This.
I forgot the exact percentage of places that aren’t legally registered as a guest house, Airbnb type establishment in Taiwan, but it’s extremely high. If you threaten to report them to the relevant agency that oversees guest houses, you might be able to coerce them into refunding your money.
I’m in Taipei! And I’m not sure if I can do the guesthouse certificate angle since I booked a stay for 31 nights 
When I spoke to 1999 they said they couldn’t take a report.
Why is the number of nights relevant?
Either they’re a legal guesthouse or they’re an illegal guesthouse. It doesn’t matter how many nights you booked.
If they are an apartment instead of a guesthouse, then you need to sign a contract. If you haven’t signed any contracts then you can still get out of it.
You need to report them to the police, not 1999. Of course, you don’t actually have to report them. Just start by asking for their Guesthouse Certificate, and if they can’t provide one (or lie to you about requiring one) then you can tell them you don’t feel comfortable staying at an illegal business and ask them to cancel your reservation.
After all of that, if they still don’t cancel your reservation, THEN that’s when you threaten to report them to the police.
You should be able to escalate with Airbnb to get a refund
Probably the place isn’t even allowed to do airbnb. I doubt earnings are being reported or any taxes paid. Safety hazard is probably not on the landlord’s list of priorities.
Ok, so they are not a guesthouse but an apartment instead. I guess there isn’t really much you can do in this case, except maybe call 1999 again to see if windowless apartments are legal.
If I were you I’d just take the apartment. Besides, what would you do in the event of a fire even if there was a window? It’s not like you can jump out of the window to escape death. That will only give you a faster and more painless death.
31 nights = it’s an apartment / not under the jurisdiction of the tourism folks, yet no housing contract, strikes me as illegal in a different way (and open to, say, getting locked out after two days, with all your stuff inside, with a landlord saying you had no legal right to be there in the first place, etc. Seems like really messy situation to walk into)
The idea with multiple exits (especially windows) is that a fire truck with a ladder could rescue you. Or that you would have a fire ladder that you can open and climb out with (which I have seen even in some really sketchy (almost certainly illegal!) hostels and guesthouses
I’m currently in an Airbnb. As long as the duration is 31 days, it’s not considered a short term tourism let. It’s the same in other countries as well although the number of days might vary.
Surely, the OP could tell from photos or reviews about the lack of windows?
They can be pretty good at hiding that. My last place put in a fake window that led to the hallway. So when they took pictures, it looked there was a window when it was just a facade Basically
let’s just say that building codes and standards here do differ greatly from other non-asian countries.
those r windows, they do open and get air in, so I don’t see unfortunately much which can be done.
Shabbiness here is the rule
I don’t get it. It’s very common for hotels to have rooms with no window in Asia. The real issue is fire escapes and evacuation routes.
