Pros: Amazing location, very comfy bed, AC was a godsend, had a bidet, nice hot water
Cons:
1. There is a ton of mold which has clearly been there for a very long time on the bottom of the bathroom door. As someone with sensitive allergies, it made me cough all night the first night and I took many medicines to improve it the next nights
2. The bathroom is one of those which the floor is also the shower drain. It’s a small space with a sink, toilet, and bidet, and the walls/floor are tiled like a shower with a drain on the bottom. This makes the place very wet and humid. I’m generally not a fan of these bathrooms but understand the functionality. However, to consider these clean, the entire walls and floor would need to be scrubbed clean between each guest and it was very apparent that had not been done. There was also this awful shower curtain with mold on it that you swing to either block the sink or the toilet when you are showering. Due to the mold, it just made everything feel unclean, especially the towels hanging on the rack which is touched. Less important but a lot of the shelves and holders in the bathroom were held up by tape, which makes it obvious how rarely the walls are cleaned.
3. The AC unit, while great, is bulky and takes up nearly the whole designated little “kitchen” area, so that space in unusable
4. The stairs are extremely narrow, do not feel stable with two people on them, and the light does not turn on from the bottom, so you either need to use a flashlight or climb in the dark at night.
5. Communication/check-in: While I accept partial responsibility for this, we had a horrible check-in process. Our flight was delayed and we had issues on the train, so instead of arriving at 8, we arrived closer to 11. We had warned Marina that it would be possible we check in late and she had left instructions just to call to be let in. I sent several messages on air bnb to communicate that we were running late, and as it got closer to us actually arriving, I called a few times too. We never heard back. Not at 8 when we didn’t arrive and I would imagine a host would normally check messages. Not closer to midnight as you would expect a host to wonder if there was an issue or it was a no show and think to check. No response. We arrived at 11 and there was no answer on her phone, so we thought we would not be able to get in. Luckily a neighbor let us into the building, or we would have had to find another place to sleep. Once inside, we found the keys easily, but had issues opening the door (you have to push very very hard on the key to the left). We tried calling again. No luck. Thankfully we got it around midnight after constantly trying, as well as trying to see if there was another way to contact her. We were very very apologetic the whole time but only head back at 3 am that it’s okay that we are late. Not are you okay, have you arrived, were there issues, etc. The experience left is very disheartened.
6. The couch was clearly stained, so again, concerns about cleanliness
7. Two of the outlet covers were very loose, which made me question whether the outlets were safe to use. One straight up came off the first time I plugged something in.
Overall, not a great experience. Since we arrived so late the first day (out of 3 nights) and were planning to be out most of the second day until very late and check out early after the third, we decided to just stick with this spot. But if we had planned to spend any time in the spot, we likely would have moved to another location. Again, location was absolutely incredible, bed was very comfy, AC dwas awesome, and the host seems very kind despite our less-than-stellar check-in. But those don’t out weight the lack of cleanliness and the stress of our check-in to me.