The host seemed flexible about check-in time and did not require a fixed time for us to show up and also did not try to make an appointment with us. We were told that her husband would be home for us to open the door. Upon arriving around 9:30 pm we were told by him that he had "just left 20 minutes prior", naturally without informing us and without leaving the keys at the location indicated in the instructions. We called and messaged both the husband and the host for a good half hour until we could get ahold of the host, that complained that check in was supposed to happen at 14:00 and that "afternoon in England ends at 17:00", pretending that no messaging happened all throughout the afternoon and evening about our whereabouts and how we were constantly told not to worry about anything.
It was almost 22:00 and we wanted to have an early sleep since Monday morning we had important comittments in the morning. The host claimed that she would be back in two hours because she was spending time with family. The host went on her plans without informing us and disregarding and ignoring the fact that we needed to eventialy check in before night time. Not trusting the obviously not reliable host, we took an uber to meet her in a cocktail bar. Cost: 25 pounds and a round trip of 45 minutes just to pick up keys that could have easily have been left for us at the location in the instructions.
Very inconvenienced but tired, we went to sleep. The host asked us to leave all doors unlocked as she would not have had on her a spare key to come back inside her own apartment, which we found quite irresponsible and unsafe in zone 2 of London. We however blocked our bedroom as well as we could.
The host and her husband returned around 2am and took 4 hours rather than 2 to come back as she previously stated. She was clearly drunk and she was having an animated and loud discussion with her husband, the content of which I could give a full report on because it was clearly audible. I am a light sleeper and I could not go back to sleep for another hour.
This experience was horrendous, with a very irresponsible and unreliable host. I recommend to stay away.
We could have spent the same amount of money in a cheap hotel and we would have been treated with respect and not woken up by shouts. (The host also clearly lied to us because nobody spends time with family in a cocktail bar and comes back from it drunk at 2am...)