I will try to make my review for public as neutral as I can and I encourage everyone to reach out to me if they want more details.
I will distinguish my experiences with pre, between and post-booking experiences.
Pre-Booking and While Living there:
Renat & Natalia's house is no-doubt on a great location, if you are a beach or party lover, then this place is good spot for you. I will also applaud Renat's always available nature as well, I hardly found any delay in his correspondence, so whatever I could message, he will get back to me asap. I also appreciate the apartment had all the basic necessities you could ask for - the parking spot is also within one of the basement floors and easily accessible to lifts. They also assign a check-in host, ours was a person named Danny - a wonderful guy, he welcomes us when we arrived and helped us check-in.
FYI: I also purchased the Airbnb Air-Cover which was around $400-500 extra for me (non refundable of course), my intention to purchase airbnb's insurance is due to the fact of some hosts being cheeky and bad people that would come after you blaming for things you haven't done - however I thought these guys are nice, so maybe I shouldn't have had purchased it.
There were a few moments where we realized we have issues with (but we are not petty people) so we either ignored or even if shared with Renat, we didn't bother much as they are small issues to us.
1. The rooms were a bit chilly for our toddlers and the only AC (Heater) was in living room, I did ask Renat and he politely said nobody has ever complained and he can arrange a few oil heaters if required (but I went ahead and purchased something from Face book marketplace) which I did leave on their apartment (asking Danny and Renat both since I can't throw it away and it has to be scrapped when there's a community pick-up) they both were okay with it.
2. One of the bathroom doors had its rubber cracked open so if would lock the door to its full, then it would have locked the shower door and someone from the outside will have to come and open you up - we were okay as we would never close the shower door fully and our bathroom door was also not locked so even if we are stuck, we could scream and either my wife or I would come and unlock ourselves - I shared this with Renat while checking out just so that he could get it repair before the next guest arrival.
Post-Booking Experiences:
We checked out handing over the apartment as clean and in the way it was given to us (which we also got a message from both Danny and Renat thanking us to be wonderful guests etc). I also took like 40-50 pictures of every room and things to Danny while leaving the house.
However, after 2 days I suddenly get a damage reimbursement request from Airbnb Resource Center claiming that I have damaged one of the internal bathroom cabinets and that the chip has fallen out which they had to repair for $159 and now I need to pay it back. I declined the request and sent message back to Renat asking why would he charge me for something which I haven't done.
Renat was adamant that I have done it and I need to pay now - when I questioned him if he has like a before/and after pictures or anyway to prove that I have damaged the chip, I will be happy to see it, however what happened next will blow your mind.
Renat started blackmailing me, he out of sudden started saying that I have breached the bylaws by allowing and staying a 5th adult without them informing. My booking was for 4 adults and 2 toddlers, I said how can you say that? Renat said Danny texted me confirming that there was a 5th gentleman who you had stayed and since you didn't informed us by-laws suggest that you will need to pay idk $500 or 600 more.
He also said that he could have waived off the $159 from damages but since I am 'blackmailing him' by asking for what? a before/after prove then how he is going to have me pay for this 5th person checkin.
I said okay now that you have blamed me 2nd time for something and you are saying I will have to pay, I will again ask you for prove and this time I am going to give you 24 hours to come back with any proof that can justify your claim of us staying a 5th person. I said I give you a hint (every floor has CCTV installed, go and check footages and tell us if you ever see a 5th person entering or leaving apartment with us).
I guess that scared him off or what, he calmed down then and started asking me to be honest with him, even if I had a 5th person staying, he said just be honest with me and tell and we can also forget about it.
I said 'dude, I am not denying your blame, I am just saying you go and find a proof in 24 hours' and come back, you have actually given me a mental torture and stress on a tuesday morning (when I am working) but since I can't wait as the damage reimbursement request had an expiry to respond back in 24 hours which was ending on tuesday 1st November around 10.30 pm (so I was stressed out to reply to this asap).
He said I am blackmailing a superhost and I need to pay at-least the damages, I said I will if you prove - after a few minutes Renat messaged me saying that Airbnb has reimbursed him the $159 so