This was the most unpleasant stay in an AirBnB our family has ever experienced.
Long description to follow: We arrived and one of the host's team let us in. The elevator was not working; we had to carry four large suitcases and a baby stroller up the stairs (no help provided).
First impressions: the apartment is as it appears in the pictures, but the pictures do not tell the whole story. That is, this is one of those places where the bare minimum is done to host you - and in this sense, the photographs are not exactly misleading, but the primary experience of the apartment is one of disappointment (not least because of how much the space costs).
It is a space that is shabby and not especially well cared for: wardrobe doors do not open or close smoothly; the bed barely fits inside the second bedroom - and when you move it, there is detritus still there from earlier guests, perhaps even from years before; the windows are filthy; there is enough equipment in the kitchen to cook the most simple meals, but if you want to try anything beyond frying or boiling, you'll need to bring your own stuff. The washing machine is oddly hosted under a cupboard hosting the boiler on a carpet in the hallway. The place is a bit cold both in terms of temperature and in terms of ambiance.
In this way, it reminded me of many places where I had lived while working in London: landlords just want to make money out of you, and they will do the bare minimum required to provide what is required of them, and anything beyond that is simply stonewalled into frustrating stasis. Indeed, it is my experience that such landlords will go way beyond the bare minimum so as NOT to help you, but going beyond that bare minimum to help you is impossible. I am not sure what term we can use for a type whose nature it is to expend greater efforts to keep things disappointing than it is to try to make pleasurable - although some curt words do come to mind.
And, alas, those curt words would be applicable here, as I shall explain presently. For, beyond the initial disappointment that the venue provides, I should recount how our stay quickly went from disappointing to unpleasant, and then to our leaving the venue a whole week before we were due to leave.
For, shortly after our arrival we wanted to put our baby to sleep in the crib that had been put in place by the host. We like to monitor our baby when she sleeps. Using approved plug adapters, we plugged our North American electronic monitors into the British power sockets, only for sparks to fly from the plugs - dangerously close to our baby. The power went out on all of the electricity sockets in the apartment, except in the kitchen (overhead lights still worked).
Given the flying sparks, we were afraid of electrical fire, and/or of electrocuting our baby/ourselves, and so we called for help. An electrician came round and showed us where the trip switches are for the electricity (in the boiler cupboard above the washing machine on the carpet in the hallway).
We turned the electricity back on, but our equipment, which has always worked fine when plugged into British electricity sockets using the appropriate adapters, would not work at all. Our phones, tablets and laptops thus all began relatively promptly to run out of battery power, and we could not monitor our sleeping baby - and did not want again to risk plugging in equipment that might cause for her to get electrocuted.
Having ourselves bought new plug adapters, we later tried again, only for the same to happen: complete power outage.
What is more, come evening, we wanted to bathe our baby, only for the hot water to run out with about two inches of water in the bath. In other words, as a guest make sure that you are frugal with the hot water.
We asked the property manager for more help with this, and a second person came. They explained that when the hot water runs out, you have to wait for 30-40 minutes for it to heat up again. We did. No more hot water than the first time.
We also asked this second person about the electricity situation, since all of our devices were now on their last bars of power. The host also informed us that it was our fault for not having British devices and that we could go and find a transformer to allow them to work in British electricity sockets.
Even though we did not see how or why it should be our job to fix a problem with the apartment's electricity supply, we nonetheless sought out a transformer. This took some time - when we might have been enjoying our stay in London - and eventually we found a hardware store, the manager of which told us that they did not stock them anymore since no one bought them, before also saying that to buy a transformer would be more expensive than buying new baby monitoring equipment (as well as British-friendly chargers for our electronic devices).
Unimpressed, we also sought advice directly from the property manager, who in a fashion reminiscent of the 'bare minimum' landlords described above, washed their hands of our problem(s) - and who did not seem moved in any way whatsoever about the possible danger that the electricity issue posed to the life of our baby (sparks flying when we plugged in equipment, power outages, no possibility of monitoring her sleep, etc).
What with the space feeling like the bare minimum had been done to make it rentable, and what with these experiences, we left the apartment seven days earlier than we had planned - as mentioned. We asked for our money back and received an impersonal reply saying that this