TERRIBLE host, OK apartment, great location. We stayed in 20+ apartments through airbnb over the years on 3 continents and this host was by far the worst - he showed zero care for his guests.
First of all, when we messaged the host 10 days before arrival with our arrival time/arrangements, it took him 4 days to respond. We sent 2 reminders asking him to respond through airbnb and still did not get a response. We got very worried because accommodation in Dublin is limited and expensive, Dublin was our last stop on the trip and we did not want to start figuring out another accommodation if this one was cancelled last minute. After 4 days, we called the host from Canada to Ireland, left a voice message and only then we heard back from the host. This is not acceptable. Check-in arrangements are one of the most important steps of the process and lack of communication added a lot of stress to our trip preparations. We paid a thousand Canadian dollars for 4 nights and the least the host could do is respond in a timely manner. Then, one day we were woken up by knock on the door at 10 am. Contractors came to install curtains in the living room. The host never mentioned this to us or asked if it was Ok to perform drilling and hammering in the morning during our stay. First we did not want to let the contractors in because we thought it was mistake. We asked them to call the host to confirm there was no mistake. After more confusion, it turned out the host messaged us 30 minutes earlier to tell us the contractors were coming. A 30 minute notice at 9:45 am in the morning is not acceptable. We are on vacation, we wanted to sleep in and we did not pay the host to deal with noisy installations and contractors without any prior notice. If there was some mix-up with contractors, he should have postponed the work until the next day when we checked out or until he confirmed with us that we were Ok with this. But this host does not care.
The apartment is advertized as "luxury" but it is not. It is a renovated basement apartment. Although it looks recently renovated, there are huge water damage yellow stains on the wall in the living room. It is quite noisy - from both the street and upstairs - you can hear every step from upstairs as well as people moving furniture, etc every morning.
We were very disappointed. It was the worst airbnb experience, mainly due to lack of care from the host. The host needs to understand that his guests are on vacation. And with a little bit more care, he could easily make his guests' vacation that much less stressful and that much more enjoyable.