None of the answers above fixed my identical problem, i.e. cannot use backspace or similar keys after sshing to a remote from an Ubuntu (here ubuntu-17.10 with ncurses-6.0).
It ends up being a problem with terminfo. Basically, my gnome-terminal says it's an xterm-256color terminal (via the TERM variable, which is exported by ssh to the remote) but the remote didn't have a terminfo configuration for xterm-256color.
Doing the following fixed the issue:
$host: echo $TERM
xterm-256color
$host: infocmp >terminfo.src
$host: tic terminfo.src
$host: scp .terminfo/x/xterm-256color $remote:/usr/share/terminfo/x/xterm-256color
infocmp, without any option, produces a source listing for the terminal in the environment variable $TERM. So it is equivalent to infocmp -I $TERM.
Then the resulting source is compiled via tic.
Finally, install the corresponding terminfo configuration to the remote location. So, the next time I connect to $remote via $host, it will know about my terminal.