Where do I even begin?
What should have been a very pleasant stay turned into a beeping nightmare; literally a beeping nightmare as I dealt with an unaddressed non-stop beeping smoke alarm for 10 of my 16 day stay at this apartment.
About 4 minutes into my stay, I messaged to host to tell him that the smoke alarm above the bed was beeping. I was told that an engineer would come to fix it 'early in the week' (I checked in on the weekend) as it is wired into the ceiling and cannot just be changed. While the fire alarm should have been checked as a matter of safety before a guest arrived, I was willing to put up with it for a short amount of time.
But rather than being kept updated about the situation so I wouldn't stress, I had to constantly follow up, with no response much of the time. The alternate room I was offered to stay in on my first day 'for the time being' while the alarm was fixed, was substantially smaller than the apartment I had paid to stay in, and neither the kettle had been cleaned (picture floating black mass in the kettle) or bed sheets changed (it looks like someone had just gotten out in a hurry), or the bin in the bathroom emptied. What's more, only one of these issues was addressed an entire WEEK later, leaving me with the choice of either sleeping in a dirty room or non stop beeping (I chose the latter because I had paid for THIS room!). This ordeal has taken such a toll on my mental and physical health, being unable to properly sleep or focus on work (add on disgruntled clients and annoyed team members because every 40 seconds you'd hear this loud BEEP!).
The infernal beeping came to a merciful end on day 11 when I managed to get a hold of building management for the property, and a day later Bobby and Stephen (bless them both) got an engineer to fix the beeping. I understand that Bobby and Stephen are now fully managing the apartment and not Vector. Responses after Bobby and Stephen took over have markedly improved and they are what proper hosts should be - attentive and responsive at the very least, but I can't rewind time and get those 10 beeping days back.
The apartment itself is nice, all the things you'd want to properly have in a kitchen to use are there. As mentioned in the description, you will have to go down and up a set of stairs to reach the apartment, both stairs are narrow. The bathroom has a filtered shower head, a huge mercy to travellers who have yet to get used to London's hard water and the effect it has on hair and skin. While there are windows in the apartment, you can't really pull up the blinds, unless you want everyone in the street looking into the apartment. The window near the kitchen opens up onto someone's indoor porch (the arrangement of the apartments is a big strange). The wall are quite thin, so you'll be able to hear conversations from outside and from neighbours too, so light sleepers- you've been warned.
I've never written such a negative review for an Airbnb stay, especially for an apartment stay that looked so promising, but this review had to say something about the appalling lack of response to guests from Vector. However, if any prospective guests deal with Bobby and/or Stephen, you're in much better hands and most likely in for a more pleasant stay.