I would NOT recommend to stay at Fred’s place. When we arrived around 8pm, we were informed that there was no hot water and he would send something to try and fix it the next day. This was very disappointing as not having hot water for a shower after a long day of travel was a huge let down. When asked for other options, Fred offered us to shower at his friend’s place for free. This was a ridiculous suggestion and not something the 10 of us would even considering doing. This should have been a red flag.
However, since it was very late already, we tried to see if we can make the place work for us even without the hot water. We proceeded to look around the place and continue to find issues. The pictures do not reflect the condition, cleanliness, and some furnitures (sofa, chairs, tables). The place was run down. There was a broken planter outside, the wicker patio table (on rooftop patio area) was torn and not usable, the patio seats were very soiled and dirty, there were flickering lights throughout the house, dry wall damage in many places along with very scuffed up walls and baseboards, and the kitchenware (pots and pans) had burnt residue and were significantly scratched up. Even with all of this, you can argue that you can still stay there but the deal breaker is the cleanliness, or lack thereof. The place did not seemed it was cleaned professionally. There was lots of hair on the entry rug and the Clorox wipes we used to clean "high touch" areas were brown after wiping just the rails and light switches. This made us question the cleanliness of the rest of the house.
I informed Fred of these issues. He offered to send the cleaners the next morning and if we were still not comfortable he would refund the whole stay only if we checked out by that night. It was already 10pm. With no hot water, the dirtiness, and the run down condition, my group of 10 decided it was not worth the additional stress and uncertainty. Unfortunately, this incident cost us a lot of additional hotel expense since we had to book last minute hotel rooms (3 rooms for 4 nights) and it was a long weekend in Vancouver/Canada. time. This was a lesson learned to book only with a Super Host.