This is, at best, a borderline 2-star accommodation suffering from a severe lack of upkeep. Unless you are solely driven by your proximity to a tube station, look elsewhere.
I booked this airbnb for my parents, my husband, my 9 month old baby and myself from Oct 9-20, 2022.
Pros:
- The place was located very close to the Earl’s Court tube station which was very convenient. As a result we did hear the tube sound throughout the day until 1am but we got used to the noise
- We appreciated having 2 full bathrooms even though one bathroom was located at the opposite end of one bedroom
- The place was spacious which is hard to come by in London. This was one of the main reasons we booked this airbnb
Cons:
It was very inconvenient to have to walk 7 mins there and back (14mins total) from the flat to collect and return the keys. When you are traveling with 5 people with 5 suitcases and a stroller, having to wait outside the flat until the key is retrieved is quite annoying post long travels. When I got to the place to pick up the keys (which was at 3:20pm), we were given the wrong code so I had to call “Houst” management to get a new code. When we came back to the flat, my parents who were waiting there with the baby said the cleaner just finished and offered to let them in, which meant the cleaner wouldn’t have been finished if we had shown up at 3 pm (stated check-in time).
The steps down to the entrance are very steep so you have to be mindful with the luggage and the stroller.
Overall the description of this unit is very misleading. It certainly did not feel like a “5 star hotel experience” and there is little evidence of an interior designer being used based on the actual fit and finish of the apartment.
Several pieces of furniture (eg. sofa/couch, beds, side tables) differed from what’s in the listing photos and the overall condition of the flat is noticeably worn out compared to the photos. The couch is so uncomfortable that one section of it was literally unusable as you would sink through it unless you sat on the frame. There was only a single sheet covering the mattress (which again is different than what’s in the photos) and the pillows were very cheap and completely flat. The bed in one of the rooms was creaky with each movement. The en suite bathroom is very poorly insulated and minimally heated. It was barely tolerable in mid-October; I can’t imagine what it would be like in winter.

Things weren’t much better in the kitchen. The refrigerator often wouldn’t seal properly due to the combination of worn hinges on the door and a broken front cabinet panel. Interestingly, the flat had a fancy soup maker, but basics like the toaster and the microwave were of poor quality and extremely worn out (the handles of the toaster kept breaking off and the control panel on the microwave so worn you can’t depict some of the symbols).

The most obvious and annoying sign of the lack of upkeep was the unreliability of the heat and hot water (both supplied by a gas boiler), which in the course of our 11 night stay stopped working on 5 separate occasions. When we raised this issue the first time with the management company and property owner, they initially tried to dismiss the issue and place blame on us for misuse of the system. Once that failed, we were eventually instructed by the property owner on how to perform a maintenance procedure that required us to partially dissemble the boiler and top-up the pressure on the boiler water circuit. Hardly something anyone wishes to do on their vacation and frankly something that most people would be uncomfortable performing unless they were a trained plumber. The owners and management company attempted to brush this off a “quirk” that could be easily resolved and wouldn’t require any more attention. Unfortunately, the issue remerged with ever increasing frequency causing us to lose heat in the middle of the night and not be able to bathe our baby with hot water on multiple occasions. Despite this, the owners and management company continued to minimize the issue and never sent a technician to look at the problem. One of the owners’ did eventually stop by (unannounced) but did nothing other than observe the state of the boiler and leave.

We confirmed in advance that there would be a crib and a high chair but when we got there, there was only an oversized bassinet with no accompanying sheets (thankfully we brought our own) and creaked each time our baby moved at night. When we asked about the high chair, the host said there was no need for it in the past so hence was missing which was interesting as we confirmed its existence before coming. She ordered us a new one which arrived 2 days later and we had to assemble it ourselves.

For the price we paid to stay in this Airbnb, we were certainly unimpressed.