!!!GUEST ALERT!!! $10 laundry charge, restricted kitchen access, and more.

It is a hard decision to write a negative review on Airbnb. For the past when staying in Airbnb, either by myself or with friends, I always expected to meet and met nice hosts, so that I was always willing to ignore unpleasant little things. This time though, the situation is different, and I need to make future guests like me aware.

First of all, the laundry costs $10. It is a rip-off, because of the price, because of the restriction that you are not allowed to operate the laundry, and because of the laundry and dryer icons showing up in the room facility list. Even though the host can argue they declared the charge in the room description (very briefly, after a long and non-informative description), but I believe, first of all, this is not what a descent host should do, and, secondly, it is up to Airbnb to decide if it is legal to list facilities that are costing an unreasonable amount of per-use charge.

Second, the description page used a beautiful kitchen as its cover picture. However, once I checked into the room, I was told the kitchen is restricted from my use. I can only access the fridge and the microwave. Additionally, there is virtually no space reserved in the fridge for the guest. This is effectively keeping the guest out of the kitchen.

Some additional details about the room are shared for the benefit of future guests. It is spacious, clean and sunny, with perfect privacy. However, the house is full of activities and visitors. One of the especially annoying things is the music practice play. The house is apparently used as a training facility for music students, and the practice is laud and disturbing.

Before reserving the room, I double checked with the host if the parking space is guaranteed. Yes I did get a space all the time. However, because of the so many visitors, we were out of parking spaces frequently. It was very common that my car was blocked when I was trying to leave, or at 10pm I was asked to move my car so that some visitors can leave. Again, very very disturbing.

The room description, in many aspects, is only semi-legitimate. It is deliberately engineered to play a black-or-white game into a narrow grey area, so that the host can argue compellingly that everything is as described. However, once again, Airbnb users, especially older ones, expect to meet nice people, but in this case such an assumption no longer holds. I put this review here, for information of those guests who do not want to stay with a host like a lawyer, or who do not want to carefully read the long description like credit card user agreements.