The chalet itself is lovely - we would have really enjoyed our stay were it not for our experience upon checkout.
Although we had worked very hard to clean and leave the house as we had found it, the host's sister who did a room by room examination of the house at checkout spoke in a disproportionately harsh and accusatory manner. Overall it felt like she was almost looking around for things that were not 100% perfect as an excuse to charge us for them.
When we arrived the sink was blocked and the dishwasher did not work during our stay. This meant we had to spend the whole morning washing up plates and pans (from dinner and breakfast for 10 people) to be ready for check out at 10am. Yet still she told us off leaving a couple of pots and a few knives and forks drying by the sink. She also complained that we had left some crumbs under the table saying it was not acceptable even though I explained to her that it was because we could not find the broom to sweep the floor and offered to do it. We had paid a cleaning fee on booking. .
She showed me some faint red marks on a plastic table cloth and baby high chair accusing our children of using pens or crayons to cause these which is impossible as we did not allow them to do anything at the table apart from eating. I also asked to try to scrub the marks to get them out but she refused to let me even try.
Overall her tone really upset me - I left the house in tears and it ruined what I had felt was a wonderful stay. We were staying with five children all aged 4 and under and we had worked really hard to tidy up, doing car trips to empty the rubbish bins, and to make sure our children were respectful of the house during our stay.
We made some small unintentional mistakes during our stay: using one additional sheet that was in a cupboard, using a hand towel that was left in the bathroom and accidentally packing a towel which we thought was ours since we brought our own bath towels, as instructed. (When we were alerted to this we apologised and said we'd be happy to cover the cost and to send back the towel).
Shortly after leaving I was asked to pay an additional £179 ( around 220 chf) for “damage caused” and extra cleaning - this was a pretty unreasonable cost considering we did not break anything or damage anything to render it unusable. Airbnb’s own policy says damage from wear and tear due to ordinary and reasonable use is not considered damage. If we did indeed cause the red marks on the plastic tablecloth it was totally unintentional and would only have been caused by eating bolognese sauce or strawberries which is not something unreasonable to do at a table.
After I protested to the host (who herself was overall pleasant to deal with) the fee was l reduced a bit. I decided to pay it since we did do a couple of things wrong (ie took a towel accidentally) but I still feel that overall it was not at all justified.
Other things to note:
Check out is pretty early (10am) and check in time is pretty late (5pm) and is not flexible. My sister arrived 10 mins earlier- she was alone with three young children aged 4, 2 and 8 months old and was made to wait outside until 5pm.
The ad is slightly misleading in that there are not four separate bedrooms in the chalet - one bedroom is downstairs and the third bedroom upstairs is in fact just two beds in a space on the landing. The ad also says toys for 2-5 year olds are available but there was only an adult poker set, Monopoly, some dominoes and some books on the shelves.
The host specifies to bring your own towels - we assumed this meant bath towels but as we found some hand towels on display in the bathroom downstairs we thought it was ok to use one to dry our hands but we were later admonished/ charged for this.
Overall it is a beautiful chalet, but for me the experience was ultimately not worth the way that I was made to feel upon leaving.