I did not get a chance to stay in this suite. When we arrived, it hadn’t been cleaned from the previous guest, so we left. It was late - around 11pm. I texted to let the host know. He apologized and agreed to a refund. Not a huge deal - I assume it was a miscommunication on the cleaning issue, these things happen. We received a partial refund right away.
To leave, we decided to walk down the 5 storey exterior exit stair. Once we arrived at the street level, we were greeted by a passcode locked gate. We could not get out. We hauled our luggage up to the second level and tried to leave through the elevator lobby, this was also locked including all other exit stairs. We walked back up to the top floor suite to get the key that was left on the table, hoping it would unlock the doors to let us leave the complex. It didn’t. We eventually ran into someone else leaving who said the only way out without the right key or passcode is to leave through the top floor elevator lobby. This is illegal from a building code perspective and a major safety issue for many reasons.
This whole situation was extremely upsetting, given we tried to get out of the building complex for over 10 minutes.
When we got out, we walked across the street to a hotel and realized I still had the key belonging to the condo. I texted the owner that he could come get it from the front desk. He indicated we would not be receiving the rest of the refund if we did not return it to the suite. Since I was on a work trip and didn’t have time or mental capacity to argue with this person; the next morning I was able to get back in and drop the key back in the suite, and he released the remainder of our refund.
I have let Airbnb know about the safety issue. I will also let the City of Winnipeg know as this locked exit door is obviously something that got added by the developer or building owner after the building was completed. If this issue is not addressed I would absolutely not recommend staying here.