We needed to be out of our house for 10 days, so booked Ben’s condo unit based on the description, photos and all of the positive reviews.
Unfortunately, our stay was not what we were expecing it to be.
It started when the property manager let us into the apartment and as he was leaving let us know there was laundry in the dryer that needed to be folded.
When we started checking out the condo, the first thing we found was a greasy pan in the oven.
Over time we found these additional issues.
The well-stocked pantry appeared to be a collection of items that previous guests had left behind; including open bags of sugar and flour.
The pots and pans looked like they were acquired at a garage sale - nothing matched and they are in poor condition.
There was not a complete set of cutlery, very few cooking utensils, no wine glasses and two broken cutting boards.
The toaster was actually sticky to the touch, the stove lights were burnt out.
All and cupboards and closets were disoragnized, most things just thrown in; including a few pieces of clothing and shoes.
The bathroom sink had not been cleaned.
One day I wanted to replace the bedspread with a simple white one I found in the closet - it had multiple stains on it.
Although comfortable and stylish, the apartment needed a good cleaning.
We were woken up one night at 12:30 with noise in the hallway. We got up to find water coming in under the door, well into the kitchen. Firemen told us to stay in our unit and within a short period of time two police showed up with guns drawn. They were joined shortly by police in full gear who were there until 2 pm talking down a resident who was threatening with knives. The lock on the door had broken earlier that day and it the manager wasn't able to repair it, so we were in the apartment without a properly working lock thru this.
Because of the water damage, we had to live with two industrial scale heaters and a dehumidifier for three days.
A few days later the fire alarm went off just as we were headed to bed. There was a fire on a lower floor but fortunately we did not need to evacuate.
One day we stepped out of the lobby to see a security guard with a sniffer dog. The door from the garage to the elevators was rarely locked.
Because we had other priorities, it was a couple of days into our stay before were in touch with Ben, we were quite surprised how unprofessional he was. Ben was quite defensive and would focus on the smallest of the issues we brought forth. He didn't seem to think having a half dozen police just outside our door with guns drawn was a big deal.
Ben offered to have the apartment cleaned so we had to leave the apartment (the city had just locked down because of COVID). The level of cleaning was what we would have expected when we first arrived. A couple of the items mentioned above were replaced and the cupboards straightened up.
Over the phone Ben argued that Luxurious was a term he used in his description, and not Airbnb’s so we shouldn’t have expected a luxury apartment Our expectation was a clean apartment with a properly stocked kitchen and organized closets.
The Enhanced Clean feature noted on the listing was important because we were staying there in the time of COVID; because the overall apartment was dirty, I don't expect this standard was met.
Based on everything we experienced and Ben’s reaction to our concerns, I am not sure I would rate him a Superhost.
At one point Ben suggested we not write a review because it would reflect badly on us if we wanted to rent thru Airbnb again.
Anyhow, here we go.