Unfortunately our first negative Airbnb experience so I can not recommend.
Started off fine - hosts seemed decent, let us drop our bags early whilst they were getting the place ready and even relaxed when I had to call them apologising profusely as my daughter had accidentally dropped turtle food in the tank which they said has happened before - very embarrassing nonetheless. On arrival we felt that the place didn’t live up to the expectations we had, based on the high cost and the listing, but it seemed like the space would work for our two families.
But the real problem was upstairs due to smoking inside of the house. All bedrooms smelt musty-mixed with air freshener but one in particularly smelt of smoke. We left windows opened all day and gave them the benefit of doubt to try and get on with our holiday. However when the air freshener smell faded there was a distinct smell of smoke in the room with two single beds that my little kids were staying in, which intensified when windows and curtains were closed at night. It made the room unusable and the smell lingered around the upstairs. My daughter had to bunk in with the other kids and my son in with us, very inconvenient. When I flagged the issue to the host he initially sincerely apologised, offered a nominal refund and explained they previously had a renter who had smoked in the room. I was so upset about this and still am - my two little kids slept in a room the first night that someone had smoked in and I had no idea as it was clearly covered up by the hosts which is dishonest, they knew kids would be sleeping in there due to our prior Airbnb conversation about bedding arrangements. Had I known in advance I never would have had them stay in there. When I expressed my upset about this to the host and asked why he hadn’t had this professionally sorted for our arrival or disclosed it so we could have found something more suitable, he then became defensive and even started claiming we had left various damages and stains which we had not. We took care of the house during our stay and left it in good order as we have with all Airbnb stays over the last 5 years, as evident in our excellent reviews. Had we caused any damage we would have tried to rectify and would have contacted them immediately. When I asked for more information about these claimed damages and stains and for photos, nothing was sent and he stopped communicating with us.
Strangely, the host also came into the house whilst we were out one day and locked off the sunroom for some unknown reason with no communication either before or after, we just arrived back to a locked sunroom. They had communicated in advance that this room would be part of the listing. It’s really not ok to change your mind during a rental and worse to not communicate about this.
Subsequently, due to no further response from the host we had to go through the whole complaints process with Airbnb which was stressful especially as we were still on our travels. As part of the Airbnb booking we initially paid a $200 cleaning fee, which is ironic given the issue with cleanliness. This has since been refunded by Airbnb but given that one of the bedrooms was unusable, the dishonesty of the host in order to make money rather than satisfy basic standards of any family and the fact that my two little kids stayed in a room that had been smoked in, the nominal refund does little to rectify this upsetting experience.