We are a family with 3 young children and stayed 3 nights here during the last leg of our vacation to Switzerland and to catch return flight from Zurich airport. Purely based our personal experience , our review is focused on providing insight of the stay as plain as possible without overstating pros and cons, for the benefit of the future guests to take informed decision.
Pros :-
-The host Patricia, was very welcoming. Provided the directions to the place and received us at the gate with big smile. She gave a complementary fruits from garden, milk.
- The host kindly accepted our request to check in at 4pm, instead of 6pm.
-The best part of place is the kitchen, which was very clean and had everything for the guests to do a quick cooking, utensils, even allowed us to use some spices and oils. There was a generous amount of coffee pods, tea, jam.
-She suggested few places to visit in Zurich but we were occupied with other plans. She also suggested some places to buy a gift.
-She promptly notified us about some personal items which we forgot in her place including some photos and she was very kind enough to mail them to us.
Cons :-
Here comes the hard part.
- As mentioned by host, in the description, the apartment is a private one and it seems used mostly by the host herself. So it is filled with lots of personal stuff, a heap of unorganized carry bags in the hallway, her shoes and clothes hanging in plain sight. It was uncomfortable. This issue is also pointed out by few other guests in their reviews.
- The room with the brown cupboard in the apartment, which is on the eighth photo, was completely locked for personal use by host. The host explained that it was for her and the description mentions only 1 bed room and said I was not familiar with Airbnb. But I fail to understand, why to put up a public photo of an entire room which the host wants to lock and to keep it for her self ? Is it not misleading ?
- The kitchen and bath room, toilet is exactly like in the photos. But the photos of the rooms do not represent complete and current state of the place. During our stay, we found the rooms are packed with more furniture, host's personal stuff,
indoor plants, speakers on the floor, etc in such small rooms. Except for the kitchen & balconies, the whole place looked very congested than being cozy. The place in our opinion, is only suitable for 2 or 4 people at max. There was little or no room to keep and unpack our things. With 5 guests and 4 suitcases and it was very tough stay.
- One single extra bed had a sign , not to step on it to avoid breaking. But the host did not tell us that it was already broken. The bed was going out of shape every time and then we found that the support strips underneath were already broken and was joined by tapes at multiple places. It was so uncomfortable to sleep on it. This bed has to be replaced.
- I was in a hurry to book a stay and it was my fault that I did not read the rules thoroughly. The published house rules are lengthy and the one posted at the apartment is even more lengthy. Such as the host expects guests to water plants daily before going to bed as they do , vacuum the toilets as well. I do like and have plants at home. But honestly I do not want to spend time watering plants daily during a holiday !! Probably the host may replace the plants with low maintenance ones. I have never done vacuuming the toilets, during any vacations before. On the last day, we had to wake up and spend two hours extra to abide by the check-out rules and clean entire apartment as expected by host to leave the room as it was when we checked-in. It was tough one, as we had to leave the place at 8am, to catch our early fight in the morning.
- July was the hottest summer in Europe and rooms were hot. We kept the windows open to cool the rooms but the mosquitoes coming in. Host may also consider having fans to
manage the hot summer time. But then there is no place to keep the fans !
- During our stay one of the window locking system got damaged and agreed to settle it with 190 CHF. It was repaired shortly as informed by the host. Since the host said, the actual price and invoice would take several days or weeks, we agreed to settle the estimated cost which was based on similar case by earlier guest years ago.
Host got upset that we did not inform about this damage. The window was actually locking sometimes, and sometimes it was not, so we thought it was the condition of that specific window and did not occur to us to inform about it. The same way we did not inform her about the already broken bed.
During this subject discussion, host questioned my character and behavior repeatedly on another messaging app. Then I had to request her to switch over to Airbnb messaging. However we hereby declare that the review is genuine and exactly what we felt and it was not motivated by this incident.
Overall, the host aims to provide a different experience to guests, on how the locals live and many guests seem to like it. But in our case unfortunately, it was a misfit.