I was hoping that my stay here would’ve gone smoother. First off, the check-in. I’ve stayed at many different air bnbs in many different cities and I’ve never experienced such a late check-in. Maybe 1pm, 2pm but never 4pm. I can appreciate the cleaning situation, especially with covid, however, when I reached out about early check-in as I was arriving 8:30am, I was told the cleaning company the property manager uses, also services 150 apartments and it was hard to schedule them and early check out would not be an option. It was not an ideal scenario, but I made due and stored my bags using Stasher. With that, certain things that one would assume would be paid attention to by either the cleaners or the owner were neglected, such as a light bulb being out in the bathroom, no paper towels to wipe down the kitchen, not enough dish pods for the dishwasher were all overlooked. I didn't mind getting those things as I did use the kitchen for certain meals during my stay but it just felt like it added insult to injury given how meticulous and strict everything was in the outlined messages and having already paid for Stasher, and essentials for the flat that typically are the responsibility of the host. Despite paying the cleaning fee you are also asked to take out the trash before leaving, which wasn't a huge issue as I’ve offered to do so every time I stay at an Airbnb, it was a bit bizarre having paid a cleaning fee and then have to do so myself and worry about one more thing on my way to the airport.
Secondly, I can appreciate the detailed rules, especially in a high turnaround flat in a touristy area, but there was a very clear rule about not making noise, yet it should've been noted with the same level of detail indicating how noisy the bar below and the other tenants can be. I’m from NYC and live in London currently, I’m not a light sleeper and am used to the noise of a city, particularly in a densely populated central area, however, this was excessive. I was literally been woken up every 20 minutes from people running up and down the stairs, people in the alleyway outside the window since 4am. That was after the house music from the bar stopped around 1 am. It was also Good Friday also so I can’t even give the benefit of the doubt of people going to work early. While it’s not the owner's fault as they do not control the actions of others, it feels as though there was no indication of this in the description.
The flat was charming in its decor, and the location was good especially if it's your first time staying in Edinburgh, but the drawbacks were pretty severe, and I’ve never really had issues like these with anywhere else I’ve stayed.