Oh dear. Let’s start with the good stuff.
The flat is in a terrific location close to an area of the city which has changed beyond recognition over the last decade. You are minutes away from the buzzing new bars and restaurants of the Northern Quarter, even closer to one of the best pubs in the country, The Marble Arch, and it’s a short stroll to both main rail stations and the best of the independent shops. It’s big enough for a two-bedder, is warm and relatively quiet. It’s ground level with only two windows having natural light. They look out on to the street so if you want privacy and have to close the blinds, it’s a relatively dark space.
Now the bad stuff. When we arrived, the flat hadn’t been cleaned. Mistakes happen but in Covid times this is fairly inexcusable. The fridge stank so my wife spent the first 20 minutes of her holiday cleaning it so we could put fresh food there. I couldn’t get a phone signal in the flat and there was no welcome sheet with wi-fi details etc so couldn’t call on WhatsApp. I called the agency on my wife’s phone. They apologised and said they would sort. And this is where the problem with this property started to unfold. Because it is an agency you lose that personal touch which would sort this type of issue if not immediately then far quicker. We had to leave the flat. The agency was not proactive and I had to keep calling for any update - which was not forthcoming. After over an hour without any contact, I called the person who handed over the key to us who said he didn’t work directly for the agency. He passed us on to a separate cleaning agency. See where this is going? Eventually the cleaning agency boss - Charmaine who was brilliant - said she couldn’t find anyone to clean the flat so would do it herself. It meant we could not access the flat for at least three hours, ironic given the agency says it may fine you if you are late checking in.
When we were finally in, a glass of wine was needed. Second problem, there is literally one wine glass. There are three plates and three forks so if there are four of you, one of you is eating out of your hands. One teaspoon and a paltry selection of kitchen equipment means you’ll spend your holiday washing up all the time. No tea towel and not even a bin liner so I had to go out again just as we had settled. It is very poorly equipped, fitted to the absolute minimum or worse.
After a tedious start to the holiday it was time for bed. I got in and the bed collapsed. I am 11 and a half stone and my wife less. The legs were weak and buckled and the slats beneath weren’t in place properly - perhaps a legacy of a previous occupant. We spent the night slumped half on the floor. The next day we went through the same rigmarole with the agency trying to get them to confirm someone was coming out to fix the bed. At one point the agency stopped replying to our calls. As my wife and I are both journalists, we are used to this. The bed was fixed eventually that evening but it’s a cheap bed frame and mattress, in tune with the fittings in the flat, so be warned. A simple call the next day to see if everything was OK after all this wouldn’t have gone amiss. We had poor sleep all week.
If you are in Manchester to party in the city and intend spending the majority of your time out, the flat is adequate. If you are a family that intend to eat there, watch Netflix (TV wasn’t working when we got there, Charmaine fixed it, and isn’t a Smart TV so forget streaming) and feel cosy then forget about it. The agency need to take accountability here. It wouldn’t cost much to provide more plates and cutlery etc and give the place some love. We dealt with two different people in those first two days, Ash and Henry, despite the message icon saying ‘Mike’. It’s a London number. If you have a problem then you are at the mercy of a company and not a homeowner. AirBnB was built on personal interaction and if that’s what you want here, look elsewhere. Incidentally, I’ve stayed around the world with AirBnB and this is the first negative review I have written. Must do much better. Over to you Mike, Ash, Henry…