We note the numerous positive reviews for this listing and it was an important factor that contributed to our final decision to stay Benjamin’s place; however taking into account the dates of these reviews, it appears most of them were made before Benjamin and his wife Danni had their son. This is not to say that their son caused us any direct disturbances – Ben was upfront about his son’s bathtime in our bathroom between 6-7pm and that we might hear him crying in the morning, the prospect of both which we did not mind.
However, given our recent experience of this room we feel it is necessary to be objective in this review, to enable future guests to adjust their expectations accordingly. The following is divided into sections.
(A) Pros:
• Ben was understanding of a mix-up in our arrival timing and made sure to receive us in person.
• The house is easily accessible in Kensington with many restaurants and attractions nearby – Ben recommended us places to eat and visit upon our check in.
• Danni was flexible about letting us leave our bags after our check-out for a later collection before our flight that same day.
(B) Cons:
• The house was clean, however throughout our stay the kitchen gradually became messy with unwashed dishes and food remains, which deterred us from usage even though it was technically a shared space as introduced by Ben.
• The bathroom tap was explained to us to be leaky, requiring substantial manoeuvring to achieve an optimum angle that would stop the leaking. This lasted for about 4 out of 6 days during our stay before it was fixed.
• A sanitary bin was not provided, and the bins in the room and toilet were not lined (we resolved this ourselves with a random plastic bag)
• There was an extremely limited amount of space in the closet available to us. Despite Post-it notes on the closet door indicating that they were willing to make more space if needed, the rest of the closets were completely filled.
(C) Issues that our hosts would not have been able to immediately resolve even if raised during our stay:
• The door to our room was not lockable (this was not mentioned in the listing).
• The Wi-Fi connection was poor in our room, to which we suggest perhaps installing another wifi point to help with that. We had no issues with using our personal data plans to counter this, but signal still proved to be rather poor and it may have to do with the location of the room itself.
• The room was true to pictures but proved to be an incredibly tight squeeze for two people, especially when two large suitcases are involved and require unpacking to get properly settled into the space.
• The water pressure of the shower head was inadequate.
(D) Notable Incidents:
• The door to our room would occasionally open itself within 2-3 minutes. We asked Danni to troubleshoot this, which basically required additional manoeuvring on our part to close it securely. Although we were informed that they had recently replaced the doors in their house, it seemed that they did not know their house well enough to inform their guests about potential issues upfront – especially those involving basic privacy and security.
• Ben had pre-empted us that they would be hosting some friends in the patio on Day 2 of our stay. We needed 2 water glasses but found none available in the designated kitchen cupboard. Upon informing Ben, who was with his other guests, he told me to look in the kitchen cupboard (which I had already did and told him as such) and appeared hesitant to help until I repeated myself. He then came into the kitchen, realised there were indeed no fresh glasses and grabbed 2 used ones on the side to wash up.
• Most of our minimal interactions with Danni were reminders to be quiet because her son was sleeping. This was even though we are generally quiet people to begin with and were usually outside of the house.
• On Day 4, we came back past 8pm in the evening to find the lights on in the bathroom and bath toys scattered about the bathtub. Noting that their son’s scheduled bathtime was 6-7pm (per listing description), we figured they needed extra time to clear up. At 10pm, it was in the same state and Ben was asleep in the lounge with a movie on in the background. I had to wake him up for the issue to be rectified.
• We had only attempted to use the messy sink once urgently before checking out to wash our water bottles, and realised there was no washing up liquid provided. There were 3 bottles by the sink; one empty hand soap bottle and two unidentified bottles (picture available upon request). Due to this unclarity, we ended up mistakenly using hand moisturiser and could only rectify this by using the hand soap in the bathroom. There was no one in the house at that time to assist with this issue.
The above points are simply from an honest and unbiased point of view, considering all possible factors and circumstances relative to our stay. We completely understand that parenting is not easy and can be extremely taxing, but these incidents coupled with the list of cons made our stay less than enjoyable. Although we respect the communicative spirit of AirBnB, the reasons why we did not reach out to them for most issues in Sections B and C were (1) we had very packed schedules and these issues gradually surfaced during our short time back in the house, which then snowballed; (2) Ben and Danni were barely in the house and appeared too busy to deal with us. On the basis of efficiency we dealt with what we could to the best of our ability. As Ben and Danni are AirBnB