This was a wild ride of an Airbnb. I arrived Wednesday night, pretty late in the evening. Before I arrived they wrote me that the last guest broke one of the window panes of the door and broke the geyser so that the shower was boiling hot and unusable. They promised to have it fixed the next day, so I figured it would be okay. There was a hole in the door as they had said, and so there was no sound barrier between the street and the house. There were shards of glass sticking out from the hole, but luckily it was one of the bottom panes. You could see into the house from the street through the hole. The apartment was fairly clean, although one bedroom had unclean towels in the closet.
The following day (Thursday) they told me that their handyman was at Africa Burn and could not come to do the repairs. They would not be able to fix the door or shower themselves until the following week because they live one hour away and were not able to come into Cape Town. This doesn't seem too far to drive to me, but I suppose everyone has different limits.
Monday was a holiday so they said they would fix the shower and the door on Tuesday, almost one week after I had been staying there. I wrote on Monday to ask what time on Tuesday the repairs would happen. They answered, and instead of saying when repairs would happen, they told me to turn the geyser off for 30 minutes, and then back on, so that the shower water would not be so hot. I reminded them that they promised to fix the shower and that the door was still broken and they never answered that message.
On Tuesday they wrote me that they had come into the house to check on it and to turn the geyser off, without telling me beforehand!!!! I booked another airbnb that evening and moved the next day. I had planned to stay at this house for another week, and it was extremely inconvenient and stressful to move.
The host also stopped responding to airbnb, who luckily provided me with a partial refund.
The day after I left, my friend returned my keys to the lockbox. The host had already moved back into the house, without informing me. Even though I had technically booked the stay for another week.
I am extremely glad that I moved, as the new place has a whole door with no holes and a working shower. This was an extremely stressful and unprofessional situation.