Melanie and Ben’s place is very nice, updated and clean. The location is great; only a five minute walk from Hammersmith tube station. Melanie left some toys out for our two kids (5 & 2), which they greatly appreciated! A thorough house book was provided with instructions for the house. Melanie was communicative and working with her was easy.
A few items which made our stay a bit more challenging should be noted:
1) The temperature of the house. Like most London homes, this one doesn’t have air conditioning. Unfortunately, we came during an extended heat wave in London. Certainly nothing the owners can do about that, but given that the house is four stories, each of which has bedroom(s) on it, it gets progressively hotter on each floor. One portable/plug-in fan per bedroom would have made a world of difference and is something the owners should invest in. The windows all open a tiny amount, for security and safety reasons, but that doesn’t give enough air flow through the house. My in laws both slept with their faces near the windows just to get a little cool air during their sleep. We had to move our kids from the third to the second floor into our room for a little relief. Again, not Ben and Melanie’s fault, but fans would’ve made it at least tolerable;
2) Storage space is limited in the master bath, master bedroom and other areas of the house. Many closets where we could’ve stored items weren’t accessible to guests. I appreciate that they live in this house full time (not while we were there) and need it to not all be open to the renter, but it seemed extreme the amount of area that was closed off.
Overall, we all walked away saying that the location was great, the house was great, it was comfortable, but regretting that the house was so hot. We would stay again once they provide a couple fans!