I really wish that I could have given Reem-Mayah’s condo a higher rating. But in good conscience, we cannot, as that would be unfair to future AirBnB'ers who are looking for honest feedback. The two most significant issues we faced were the lack of air conditioning for 6 nights (of our 7 night stay), and the size of the 2nd bed ”room”… both are described below.
Air Conditioning
The Air Conditioning in the condo was not functioning as expected when we moved in (Tue night) – some air was flowing, but it was not cooling the condo. Initially we tried to “fix” it by adjusting the Control Panel settings, but to no avail. There were no fans in the condo (ceiling or portable)
When we first contacted the hosts about it (wed morning), Mayah’s response was to question whether we were actually uncomfortable (!) or merely complaining because the Control Panel was showing a high reading. Note: We had emailed a picture of the Control Panel to her to ensure that we had the correct settings.
Mayah informed us that they had other condos in the building and no one else had complained, and suggested that we give it some time. So we did.
When we had no improvement by the evening (Wed), WE suggested to her to escalate the issue to building management to see what was going on.
After several hours, she got back to us with the news that it was a building-wide problem, and the building management folks were waiting for parts from the US, expected resolution was Friday evening. Mind you this was still Wed night…
No interim comfort measures were offered to make our stay bearable in the poorly ventilated unit with zero cross ventilation. There are two small “windows” that open about 4 or 5 inches in a vertical plane by use of a crank – the open vent reminded me of the Carbon Monoxide vents we have in garages – these vents are not designed to facilitate any cross ventilation! There is also a door that leads to the balcony, but that is also positioned so that no cross-ventilation happens when it is kept open.
So Thu and Fri we mostly stayed out of the condo and only came back to sleep…
On Friday night when we returned to the condo, we saw a new notice from building management that the issue was not yet resolved and the new ETA was Monday evening. No updates or messages from our hosts…
Then we sent Mayah a message requesting 3-4 portable fans so we could have air circulation. This was late Friday night, so we didn’t expect an immediate answer.
We heard back from Mayah on Saturday morning, stating that she was out of the country and the earliest she could help us would be after her return on Sunday!
We responded by asking her about her partner (Reem) or other emergency arrangements they might have.
Mayah’s response was that Reem was also out of the country, and that if we wanted quicker relief we could buy fans from Walmart, and return them when we left, as Walmart had a 30 day return policy… R-E-A-L-L-Y?!!!!
We were so shocked by this absurd and unethical (illegal?) suggestion that we didn’t even respond.
Later that day we got a message from Mayah that 2 Air Circulators (those cylindrical vertical fans) had been left for us with the lobby concierge, and that we should assemble and use them, but to save the boxes they came in, which we did.
The 2 fans were definitely better than nothing and we gladly used them, although we did have to move them around often, based on whether we were in the bedrooms, the living room or the kitchen. Also we had to find makeshift stands/platforms to place them, as they were not really effective when placed on the floor.
Finally on Monday evening, the air-conditioning was restored and we were able to sleep in comfort on the seventh (and last) night of our Toronto vacation.
The Second Bed “Room” (Niche??)
This review would be incomplete without commenting on the second bed-room… it is NOT a real room, but an alcove or nook that is scarcely bigger than the bed that is located in there. There is no door to this “room” and not even space for a night stand!! One has to get on to the bed near the foot area, and then crawl up into position to lie down to sleep!!
Now, to end on a positive note: the view of the Toronto skyline from the balcony is very pretty, and there is a nice breeze in the balcony!