An Airbnb host using online videos to rebuild his burned-down cottage has been plunged into thousands of pounds of debt and is struggling to support his family after the homestay firm refused to help cover the cost. Plamen Gonev, 40, says he battled a blaze with friends at his “cottage in the woods” for hours before two teams of firefighters reached the isolated cabin in Bulgaria’s Rila mountains, by which time its roof had caved in.
The father-of-two had rented the cottage to a couple on Airbnb and believes, contrary to the instructions outlined in the “welcome pack” he provided, they left the fireplace “unsupervised” and the chimney eventually caught alight. The fire service did not conduct an investigation but the cause of the blaze is understood to be a “self-igniting chimney”.
Airbnb carried out a third party probe and haas refused to help cover the £28,000 bill despite asking Mr Gonev to provide a list of all the damaged items as well as receipts or links to the websites where they had been bought. The fire has left him struggling to make ends meet and support his three-year-old son and five-year-old daughter, who both live with his ex-wife.
He is trying to restore the one-bedroom rental property, relying on online videos and guides to teach himself building techniques and borrowing more than £15,500 (35,000 Lev) from banks and friends to pay for materials. “This has turned my life upside down and I’m really struggling to get back up,” he said.
“To be honest, it’s the hardest thing I’ve ever been through in my life. We have run out of funds and are now in debt with the bank and friends.”
The Bulgarian, who works as a photographer, lived in London before moving back to his home country and buying the small cottage, which he planned to rent on Airbnb to supplement his income and help support his young family. “I bought the property in early 2018 and did a lot of work,” he said.
“It was a long and slow process and I had just finished everything before the fire. Whenever some extra money became available, I invested it in developing the property.”
His gamble paid off when he listed the property on Airbnb in 2019 for around £40 a night (90 Lev) and received a great deal of interest, especially during the winter and summer months when demand for rentals in Bulgaria’s highest mountain range skyrockets. “I have hundreds of amazing reviews saying ‘it was the best Airbnb’ and a ‘top place’ – they are still there,” said Mr Gonev, who is from the town of Karlovo.
“It was perfect because it provided people who live in the city with everything they missed. It’s 1,650 metres above sea level, with huge trees, stunning nature, clean air, water and peace and quiet.”
Mr Gonev included clear instructions on how to operate the cabin’s two fireplaces in the “welcome pack”, which said they should never be left unattended. But on one evening in January 2022 he got a call from the couple who had rented the property saying there was a “fire in the house”.
Mr Gonev said: “I was about 50 kilometres (31 miles) away so I called the fire brigade and some friends who live nearby. When I arrived, I saw the guests sitting outside with a glass and a bottle of wine and Lidl shopping bags with the food they had brought.
“There was lots of smoke so I ran in and opened the windows.” It took firefighters almost two hours to access the property as the road was covered in snow and too narrow for their trucks.
“It’s not a first class road and the last 100 metres is just a dirt track,” Mr Gonev said. “They couldn’t get their trucks up here so they had to park and connect their hoses.”
Knowing time was of the essence, Mr Gonev and his friends tried to douse the flames. “We were fighting with the fire for nearly two hours,” he said.
“It was around -15 degrees outside and the water we were throwing on the fire was freezing on the floor. It was really hard. I’m just glad that nobody got hurt.”
After firefighters finally arrived, Mr Gonev found his guests another place to stay for the night and called Airbnb, which told him to upload pictures of the damage and contact its resolution centre. “A few days later a guy called me from another company and said he needed to see the place,” Mr Gonev said.
“He came but the house was full of snow because the roof had burned in the fire. He stayed for around 20 minutes and asked me some questions about what happened and then left.”
Mr Gonev soon got an email asking him to provide a list of items that had been damaged, as well as receipts or internet links to websites where they could be bought. He also obtained a quote for £28,000 (65,000 Lev) to rebuild the cabin and an official document from the fire service saying they had not determined why the chimney caught fire.
But he was then told Airbnb would not be picking up the tab after the investigation ruled it was not the guests’ fault. “I received an email saying, ‘Sorry this is probably not the answer you were expecting but AirCover – the company’s protection programme – cannot cover the damage’,” he said.
“They basically said it wasn’t the guests’ fault and I asked how they had reached that conclusion but they just said sorry they couldn’t help me.” Mr Gonev is now trying to rebuild the property but says he has had to borrow money from friends to buy materials and lacks the expertise.
“I’m just here on my own trying to rebuild the place but I’ve never built a house before or worked in construction,” he said. “I’m learning everything step by step on the internet but it’s really hard.”
Mr Gonev got divorced a few months after the fire, which he says heaped a lot of pressure on his relationship, which was already “not going very well”. “It’s not the main reason we got divorced but definitely one of the reasons,” he said.
“Because everything crashed, we had no income and I was spending all my time working on the house.” Mr Gonev is now trying to raise £12,000 through GoFundMe to finish rebuilding his property.
“I don’t know why the fire started and I don’t blame anyone,” he said. “But I think Airbnb should give me some money, some help, some support, so that I don’t feel alone.
“I have been giving them a percentage of my rent for years and now they just disappeared.”
