To be upfront, I didn’t enjoy my stay and ended up leaving early and requesting a refund from Airbnb. I’m a Superhost myself and it's possible that your benchmark for good is different to mine so I will aim to review this property based on what is fact and what is opinion.
It is a fact that I will not stay here again, it is my opinion that this is not a good property.
I disliked this property so much that I actually left knowing I would lose money as I would not receive a full refund.
Hot water:
Facts: The hot tap in the bathroom had no water at all coming out of it. The landlady refused to fix it claiming the building was old and it would be too difficult. Once I complained to Airbnb a plumber came and took 15 mins to fix it. Throughout the property, the Hot water will only run for approximately 3 minutes before going cold. I timed it.
Opinion: 3 mins is fine to wash your hands but is not ok for a shower or washing dishes. If you have more than one guest wanting to take showers quickly, you’ll be having cold showers. Hot running water is a basic requirement for an Airbnb and this property failed to achieve this.
Internet:
Facts: Wifi was only strong in the living room where you can get 50MB, 1-2 times per day it would drop entirely for between 30-60 seconds. One day I had no internet at all for approximately 12 hours and on another, it was down for more than one hour but I left the house so have no idea when it came back online.
Opinion: The internet is fine as long as you are in the living room. In the main bedroom and kitchen, it would struggle to hold a connection but that didn’t bother me. What did bother me, obviously, was losing the connection for those two long periods.
Cleanliness:
Facts: The entire apartment was covered in dust when we arrived, floors and surfaces had to be cleaned to pull away thick black layers of dirt. We had to wash our feet on the first night before going to bed as they were black from walking through the apartment. The host suggested this was due to a dust storm the day before we arrived. The inside of the oven was covered in dirt and fat. This was unrelated to the dust storm. The host sent a cleaner after a couple of days to clean the floors and oven.
Opinion: It was way too much dirt to have just been a short sandstorm, I was in Mexico City the day before and didn’t even notice anything, the cleaner cleaned around the rugs so the wood floor itself was clean but the rugs were filthy. We rolled them up and put them out of the way as we couldn’t stop sneezing from the dirt on them. Curtains looked like they hadn’t been washed in 30+ years and probably added to the sneezing issue. Two weeks of sinus issues while staying there were appalling and they cleared up the day after I moved to my new apartment.
Kitchen:
Facts: For a 4 person accommodation you only have 4 of each utensil, bowl and plate. Actually, the main plates were only 3. Non-stick pans were heavily scratched. The host refused to provide alternatives so I had to buy my own.
Opinion: Non-stick coating is not only making cooking easier but also protects the food being affected by the metals in the pan underneath. These pans were very cheap and there is no way I was going to use them to cook food. They looked like someone had given them to a wolverine as a play toy. The small number of plates and utensils was just about enough for two people. Forget it if your 4. The two kitchen knives were ok.
Decor and Furniture:
Opinion: The wooden floors are nice, the rest is all very dated. The couches are massively uncomfortable and we sat on the floor on many occasions to get away from the couches. The dining chairs are barely held together and one of them was so close to collapsing that I thought I was going to fall over backwards when I sat down. The beds are fine nothing great but relative to the couches they are ok.
Location:
Facts: The location is inside the area of San Miguel Chaplutapec as stated but only by the width of the main road. The nearest Metro is Tacubaya. The windows over look a busy road and flyover. The Uber driver who dropped off my girlfriend on the first day refused to let her get out until I had come down to get her as he was afraid to leave her alone in this part of town. The building has a lot of dogs who bark loudly. A dog walker collects them at around 6:30 am and they proceed to bark loudly while he is going up and down the stairs. This barking happens 3-4 times a day. Loud enough that during calls people would comment on it.
Opinion: The barking dogs are bearable most of the time but on occasion something makes them twice as loud. My real mistake was not looking more closely at the area. I was told San Miguel is nice and it is in the areas closer to Chapultapec park but this property is so close to the very unpopular and unsafe area of Tacubaya that the supermarket underneath the building is called Bodega Tacubaya not Bodega San Miguel. Its noisy and big trucks and buses thunder past the window through the night. Its also dirty and heavily polluted. Their are very few decent restaurants nearby, you would need to walk minimum 30 minutes for any significant options for dining or shopping.
This is a summary of the facts and my opinions. As I said at the start, just because