THE AIRBNB DOLL HOUSE NIGHTMARE – CHAPTER 2

CHAPTER TWO: THE ESCAPE PLAN

The door closes as the witch finally leaves us alone in her Child’s Play house. Kostas stands rigid in the living room afraid to sit, stand and even think. At this moment, he did not look like the Greek Navy Seal I knew him as. He takes a deep breath, exhales, relaxes his arms and breaks into action.

“YOU open your laptop and look for a new place. I am going to start making some phone calls,” barks Kostas. I timidly move china dolls off the living room table, bust out my laptop, and begin frantically looking for backup housing on the island as he starts calling in desperate favors, on a packed Greek island in fucking August. I scroll and scroll and scroll. Everything that comes up is hours away or not available for that same night. I panic. I find one semi decent looking house on the other side of the island and instantly book it for that same night. Surely, nothing could be worse than the doll house, right?

RIGHT????

“Ok, I booked a backup place. Now how are we going to get out of this situation?”

“Don’t worry, let me talk to her. I will handle it,” he confirms.

We call the Airbnb host back over to the house to let her know “we need to talk to her urgently”.

We all sit awkwardly around the table of dolls as he explains to her that we decided not to stay because the place was not depicted properly on the platform. I notice her tone becomes more aggressive, her gray bun begins to unravel and her face reddens.

This witch is about to conjure up some Mediterranean hell. That’s when I find myself staring at the black witchcraft books because I am absolutely sure they will begin flying off the shelves in a windy, stormy movie scene, ceased upon us from the darkest parts of Kefalonia island.

“You cannot cancel!” She starts to scream in Greek. “You must stay at least 3 nights!”

Not a fucking chance. 3 nights here and we might need therapy.

“We don’t want to stay in a house with these creepy dolls,” Kostas calmly replies.

“These dolls are antique! Other guests love my dolls! How dare you insult my dolls!” she shouts as one of them stands up and starts to head in our direction (or so I fantasize).

“Are those guests still alive to corroborate that claim?” I think to myself.

“I will NOT refund your money and you will NOT cancel.” I pull up Airbnb support and get on an extremely awkward phone call with a Southern lady who can’t pronounce “Kefalonia” correctly and also can’t seem to believe that we are stuck inside a living doll house with a witch who’s about to turn us to stone.

“Ma’am can you show me photos of the dolls, please,” Airbnb customer support says. “I need photo evidence that the house is not as depicted in order to issue a refund.”

Pretending I need to use the toilet, I excuse myself from the table as Kostas and the host continue to argue back and forth.

I grab my phone and head for the bedroom to sneak a photo of one of the dolls on the bed and send it to the Airbnb customer support via our chat. She literally laughs in my ear. I also send an image of the uneven bed and the flattened pillows, praying this woman will save the day.

After nearly 3 hours arguing with the Airbnb host and customer support, we win a full refund minus the first night and are set free from the Chucky mansion to go check into our backup Airbnb. Our next mission was to get our car rental and drive over to the next house and safely unpack, settle in and finally, finally explore this beautiful island.