We recently stayed at Alan’s place for a couple of days and our experience with him as a host has not been well at all. We MOST CERTAINLY DO NOT RECOMMEND HIS PLACE. First of all during our check in, proper information about location and entry to the property was not provided and the host himself was not at the property to explain us the ways which we found a bit unhelpful and unprofessional. We tried to get a hold of him on the phone but his response time was quite slow and we had to wait a while before we could actually go inside the house.
Once we moved in, we were greeted by one of his cleaning staff who was a nice lady however, she did not speak any English and only communicated with us in Chinese and using signs which was a bit hard to grasp and understand. So I would not rate him high for communication standards.
The worst incident that led to the experience being really terrible was during our last few days, there was an accident that caused a bit of damage to one of the letter boxes in the property which was unhinged from the fence with the nail holding it together. After a couple of days when Alan contacted us about the damage caused, he started demanding a ridiculously high amount for the damage dealt which we thought was quite unfair on his part. I recall the damage only being caused to the letterbox and the nail that holds it together in place with the fence which normally is quite an easy fix. He starts demanding an amount for a complete brand new letterbox, brand new fences and apparently new numbers for the letterbox which is absolutely ridiculous! We agreed that the damaged was caused by us but was completely unintentional and while we tried to contact him and have a mature discussion about considering a fair repair price, he became quite defensive and then later on went on to adapt a threatening tone that if we don’t agree to pay the amount then he’s going to blacklist us and let the insurance company trace us etc. I believe this problem could’ve been solved by having a mature and rational conversation over a fair price for the repairs but he just didn’t want to cooperate. My only option was to contact airbnb support and having them guide us through the process according to their legal and policy guidelines. But overall, I would not rate my stay and experience at this place high and in my opinion wouldn’t recommend anyone else either.