Beautiful home, but issues with host.
First of all let’s get over with the good stuffs. The house is really beautiful. My wife loves it so much. She wants to come back. We stayed for 8 nights. Even though it was advertised as 4 rooms, in fact it is 5 rooms. The house was very clean, beautifully decorated, very comfortable beds, lovely bathrooms and has huge nice gardens that our kids enjoy playing. It has many antique features. Located 10 mins walk from overground train station, 30-50 mins drive to central London depends on destination and traffic. Supermarket nearby. Frequented by many central London buses.
Only few minor issues, when we filled up bath tub with hot water, little hot water left for shower. In summer heat, the house is hot even though the host provided small fans, but no AC, so very uncomfortable to sleep at night. The owner left a lot of space for our personal use in wardrobes. We appreciate the owner generosity in leaving notes asking us to help ourselves with things in the fridge etc.
Our issues are with the host (not the owner because owner and host are different). We were not told that the house was alarmed. So when we got in, the alarm went off. My 6 yr old who is very sensitive to sound, shut the door in panic. As a result we were trapped in the house with alarm blaring. The security was designed so that the intruders would be trapped in the house and we were trapped because door couldn’t be unlocked from inside and the windows were also locked. We had to call Guestready to get the alarm code and they were not quick in answering phone. I was trapped for 20 minutes. Later when I challenged Guestready for not providing the code in the house manual, the guy shouted at me saying it’s my fault for not reading the manual (the code WAS NOT in the manual!) I spent 6 hours in A&E department that night treated for acoustic trauma to my ears. The host Sarah’s response was rather cold. She sent message over Airbnb saying “sorry for the inconvenience, let me know if you need anything else”. We would have appreciated a phone call to check on our well being.
Later on during our stay, one of the glass globe of bedside lamp fell in the middle of the night and broke. We informed Sarah immediately in the morning and offered to get a replacement. Sarah said her team will look into that. A couple hours later I received demand via Airbnb from Sarah asking for $600!! When I queried with her about the amount, Sarah told me to ignore it as she simply open a place holder demand. But then she pursued through Airbnb arbitration unit demanding the same amount. I showed her identical replacement globe only costing around $30 and the whole lamp unit costing only $70. During the writing of this review, the arbitration process is still ongoing. I feel the host is trying to take advantage over the situation.
It left bad taste to otherwise a lovely stay in a beautiful home.