To start with, I understand that the original idea of Airbnb was to share a room in your place or actually your whole place that is momentarily not in use, which is fair enough, however, I believe it is also part of the deal that you make, whoever wishes to stay at your place, feel at home even for a short while. To be honest this is the very thing that we were missing from this accommodation at the first place. Unfortunately, there was an accident on our way to London, as a result we ended up with an unexpectedly huge delay (which we did apologise for) and arrived much later than we had originally planned. I believe it could have given our host some extra time to prepare everything for the reception of guests properly. I reckon we had clearly communicated that there would be 3 of us. Then in the middle of the night we were offered to open the folding bed for the third bed (quite uncomfortable by the way) and make it (the bedclothes were there). We were also asked if we had brought our towels. As we obviously did not, then we were given one towel each, which made me wonder if providing a towel was rather a favour than an obligation. The room is not what you would imagine by looking at the photos. It feels much less spacious, definitely too little for three people, there is not really much room left for moving around, you are literally squeezed in. The photos obviously do not show that it is like a storage room for the family: unwanted mirrors (2), worn-out package for the folding bed that should have been thrown away, suitcases (a lot), boxes, brick-a-brac etc. are stored there making your stay feel even more temporary than it is. The wardrobe is almost full, mostly with towels, bedclothes, on the top of which you can obviously place nothing, someone’s jeans jacket is still there. On the walls there are some pictures which do not match, kind of randomly arranged, not even in the right position. Little pieces of furniture (e.g. the one near the window is full of “decoration” (i.e. five empty glasses and a little picture reminding you that this place should feel like home). I would have been happier if such things had rather been cleared away and this way I could put my toiletry out there as there was obviously not much room left for it in the bathroom. The bathroom shelves looked full as well as the towel racks (there are only two for the hosts), enabling you to put your stuff properly down basically nowhere and again making you not really feel welcome in this accommodation. Even if one shelf had been cleared for the guests, it would have made a difference. I would also like to note that the litter bin in the bathroom had already been full when we arrived and was not emptied during our stay. Nor was the bathroom floor vacuumed or cleaned. From the description it was not really clear that the place was also a family home, actually an apartment in a block, while in the description it misleadingly reads that it is a family house. The bathroom is neighboured by the guestroom and a room (living room?) so you are afraid of making any noises. Noises are overheard early in the morning (at 6am?) when someone starts his/her day. You also feel that there is no room for you in the kitchen, either. However, at least in the fridge there seemed to be an emptied shelf for you. But you obviously would not feel like having even a quick meal there as there is no proper place for preparation, let alone dining. The corner where the small kitchen table stands is clustered with bags full of stuff and folded bridge chairs (5!) while there are two solid wood bar chairs at a very limited space. Both the surfaces and the floor could have done with some more cleaning.
I have understood that you ask guests to discuss problems with hosts at the first place, which I fully agree with. At the same time I do not think that our problems (the room is like a storage place, the folding bed is very uncomfortable, there is no room for moving around, there is no place for eating breakfast properly or putting out our clothes or toiletry etc.) are of the kind that could easily be sorted out while we are already staying there, such things should have been paid more attention to before our arrival, and once the host seemed to be OK with this situation we did not want to bitter our holiday experience with any further arguments about what we regard as basic requirements. At first glance, due to what we had experienced we would have rather left than stayed, on a second thought as we had just booked this accommodation for 3 nights and did not want to spend our precious time in London on looking for something else, moreover moving, we eventually stayed and tried to look on the bright side. Actually, the room is really bright and sunny overlooking some inner green area. Public transport (there are a lot of buses, and trains for the city centre at Colindale tube station) is a bit of a walk, but it was OK. However, unless things have been changed in the apartment, we would not recommend you staying there as we do not believe that it meets the Airbnb standards: I would definitely not get a licence from the local authorities for operating such accommodation as an airbnb in my country.