Thierry was timely with his responses and appreciated knowing I could get in contact with him when I needed.
A couple things didn’t go very well though during our trip and I’ve provided in suggestions to the host.
1. The bathroom doors are see through. Clear sliding doors. This information was not shared in the photos or detail of the location, only kind of mentioned in a review from a long time ago. This was not a deal breaker, but did delay the two couples getting ready for the day to avoid being near the doors to maintain privacy.
They also only provided one additional toilet paper roll, and the one that was available was nearly gone. They only provided 4 towels, no additional towels were able to be found.
2. The host had asked me on 3 or 4 different occasions prior to our arrival for my personal email address to send recommendations to. I declined every time. Airbnb clearly states to avoid giving personal information and to contact through the Airbnb app. It made me feel uneasy prior to our arrival.
3. The host advised upon arrival that we were to meet a concierge that would let us in and that I needed to text or email them prior to arrival. Again, a privacy thing that I wasn’t wanting to share and being international, I didn’t have constant access to either. The concierge somehow had access to my information and found me on the WhatsApp and communicated to me through that, which I was as able to communicate through when I had wifi which was not frequent when problems arose. We were also told when the concierge let us in that we would have the only two keys to the place so we didn’t have to “worry about someone coming in”. However someone came in to fix the leak?
4. When we got to the location, there was a small hand or kitchen towel in the toilet area under the toilet paper area and we realized the next day was full of water. The water had spread after another day to in front of the toilet and we had to put a towel that was provided to us for showering down to stop the water. There were also some issues flushing the toilet that my father in law was able to plunge back down. We assumed the water leakage had to do with the flushing problems.
5. When I communicated the leakage to the host, I was told to communicate to the concierge. The host then did tell me he was out of town for business. which was fine, I just wish we would have known that prior to. I did not like having to communicate through two different lines. After I communicated through the concierge, I advised the leak was being stopped by towels and that we weren’t really around to have someone come by since all of our personal belongings were around the place and we were on vacation and didn’t want to stay at the place to wait for a plumber. When we got back to the location late that evening after I asked them not to come while we were gone, they came anyway. We are also unsure how they got in, when we were advised there was not an extra key. They did walk through the entire place, because the light we left on in the bedroom was turned off.
6. After they had someone come fix the leak, the second to the last night our toilet wouldn’t flush. My father in law spent some time trying to get it to flush and was unsuccessful. The host asked if we flushed anything other than the toilet paper provided and we had nothing else to flush. He then stated the leak wasn’t in connection to the toilet, it was the water heater, and wanted to know if I communicated with the concierge about the toilet issue. I advised we thought the leak and toilet issue were connected. He then advised they weren’t, which isn’t something we would have known. The host thanked me for keeping him updated and appreciated my understanding that issues arise.
We do understand that things happen, it was just frustrating while on a vacation to deal with all of that and would have appreciated the listing to be a bit more clear. So I wanted to share this for the next person.
As far as the location, it was great. Close to all the major metro lines we were in need of to see all the go see items, plus some. It was above some eating areas and right across from a market. We didn’t spend much time in the flat, just woke up to get ready and got there late in the evening to sleep.
Thierry was very kind and quick in his responses and we did appreciate that.