Overall this stay was fine. I'm not sure if I ever interacted with Tom - perhaps via message but in person and by phone I only spoke with a woman. The apartment is nicely maintained with good furniture. The listing specifically said there was no air conditioning, but typically in Victoria that isn't an issue. The apartment ended up being much warmer than it was outside - because this is a lovely corner unit with big windows, it created a greenhouse effect. Even with keeping the light filtering curtains shut and the windows open only when it was cool out - the apartment was sweltering. It was only an issue because my infant son was with it, who needs to nap in the middle of the day, and because just along the courtyard this unit faces there were some young folks struggling with addiction so we were hearing them throughout day and night - again not ideal to expose a young one too, plus we had to keep the windows open at night to try and get the place cooler so we had to listen to it all. A woman did bring by two small fans though, which I really appreciated, but they were so small they didn't help very much.
What really spoiled this whole trip, though, was the communication from the host. I am quite sure when I booked that the check out time was noon. My son usually has a morning nap and I make sure to book airbnb that have check out times to accommodate it. I double checked again after the host sent a message reminding me of the check out time - it said 11 am. At ten past 10 am, my son finally down for a nap, the host's cleaner entered the unit. We discussed, she said noon wouldn't be a problem to come back but I told her I would still try my best to be out by 11 on the dot. Well the host messaged me telling me check out was 10 am a little while later, and I watched as my airbnb reservation refreshed before my eyes to a check out time of 10 am! I was outraged. I cannot believe airbnb even allows the host to shift check-out times in the middle of a reservation and that this person thought it was acceptable to do so! And the audacity of my host to act like I was violating their terms. It created a lot of stress for me and my son, who I had to wake up from his nap, for no reason - especially given that the cleaner said she didn't mind coming back at noon. I'm still miffed by this.