I can not explain in words just how terrible this stay was!...but I’ll try
Firstly, the address provided at the point of booking was not the actual address this came later via a message from the host. I have no clue why that would be necessary but in hindsight I can only think if you did a street view of the property and saw it from the outside alone you would think twice about continuing with your booking. Honestly, when my friends and I stood in front of the property we really could not believe it was the right property and were seriously surprised when the entrance code worked and it was in fact the property we were to stay in. And that wasn’t the worst of it.
The property was as pictures present however in the cold light of day it was run now, unkept, filthy, unsafe in areas, not private, uncomfortable and the smell! All things that good lighting, a long lensed camera and a professional photographer can mask and in this case in my opinion misleadingly so.
Things I can draw on even though there was much more include: The third bedroom upstairs being converted to a sauna to questionable building safety regs and which didn’t work; the property being a compact mid terrace, ex council if I was to guess, with no meaningful upgrades considering the money being charged! (We’ll get to that), The garden area is very overlooked so much that the host has designated the outdoor seating area a ‘quiet zone’ which defeats the objective of the use of outdoor seating! but necessary, as normal conversation would disturb any of the very very close neighbours let alone things like laughter and low to moderate socialising; One neighbour keeps chickens which adds to the smell, noise level especially through the night and privacy; the mattress in the main bedroom had a large dark red/brown stain…I’ll say no more; the bathroom light switch was an old shoe lace; there was rotting food under the kitchen cabinet; an old dirty broken fridge was in the kitchen; there’s a c.2 inch gap at the bottom of the front door; the ‘cinema room’ aka converted living room was smelly and sticky not somewhere we would want to relax in; carpets in the bedroom had dangerous staples sticking up (why!); I could go on and on..
We paid an extra £10 for late check out (we were out of there by 10am!) and £50 to use the jacuzzi, sauna and ‘cinema room’. This wasn’t in the original listing and again I was told in a message from the host AFTER booking, this is misleading! (I see this has now been including in the listing). The sauna didn’t work (even though for safety concerns that’s probably a good thing); There were no instructions in the property to help guests use the features of the jacuzzi, sauna (if it worked), cinema room that we could find so not helpful at all.
The host was responsive to messages during the booking process, however when we called the host when we arrived to discuss our many issues we had no response even though we left a messages stating the urgency and emergency (as if he knew why we would be calling). A message in the morning asking ‘how our stay was’ in my view a little too late as by then we were high tailing it out of there.
Guests have a choice based on the information presented to book with a host, in my view the information presented was not factual to support a balance decision to book. So much so that we paid over £600 for ONE night which would’ve been fine if we had the experience portrayed and expected. In my view what we got it was definitely not value for money AT ALL!
We cannot believe that a very long awaited reunion with dear friends was so depressed from this experience, all we could talk about was each new unsavoury discovery in the property, the shock of how we in our view could be so duped, how a host could be so brazen and waying up options to relocate even though it was too late to drive our cars safely. We got together from our homes to have a well deserved relaxing evening with friends away from work and family responsibilities, but it genuinely would’ve been much better to keep our money (remember £600+!!!) and crash at one of our homes.
Ultimately what should have been a lazy Sunday morning/afternoon, ending what should have been a lovely time with friends was shortened with the ‘ick’ we all felt from our experience, I had to have a very long shower once home. I am irritated with the misleading (in my view) nature of this listing, I would question the validity of previous reviews. I’m glad that I don’t have to have this experience again but I feel responsible to tell my truth so other guests can make a balanced decision based on fact that I can substantiate with the many pictures we took!