This was the single worst Airbnb experience I've ever had. I don't say this lightly, having booked several Airbnb's for myself, family, and friends, and receiving perfect ratings across the board. Pros: This location is fantastic (1 block from the beach on a beautiful block in Santa Monica), and the front patio area is really nicely decorated. The outdoor furniture was covered in pollen / dust, but as a Californian, I won't complain about a little outdoor dirtiness.
Now for the cons. The house was basic and bare bones -- definitely not the "Plus" experience you come to expect from Airbnb. You get the essentials, and the living room couch is super comfortable, but the amenities and finishings clearly haven't been maintained or updated in years.
We were initially fine with all this because of (again) the INCREDIBLE location, but the first morning of our stay, we were awoken at 7am by a construction truck pulling up a foot from the bedroom window, and construction workers standing outside our bedroom window looking in through our open screened windows (note: there is no AC so we had the windows open to get a breeze in). After quickly scrambling out of bed, we had hoped to work remotely, but both bedrooms and the living room windows all line the alleyway where the construction site is, so all we got was loud crashes, machinery alarms, bangs, yells, etc. for the ENTIRE day. We tried to work in the patio area but the wifi doesn't reach that far.
We contacted Alicia to ask for a discount, thinking that we could justify our "Value" for the rental at a lower rate. We spoke to Alicia on the phone (with the construction in the background -- even she acknowledged that it was extremely loud), and after a lot of back and forth because she said she was afraid of a low rating, we agreed to a rate. Then when we were away from the house later that day, we received notice from Airbnb that they were refunding us for less than the agreed-to rate, and after we pushed back to reiterate what we had agreed to, with no notice, later that afternoon, we received notice that Alicia had cancelled the rest of our reservation.
Again, I've NEVER had an experience like this and even the Airbnb representative we talked to on the phone when all this was going down was shocked that Alicia had behaved in this manner. We were able to scramble and stay in another lovely Airbnb, but suffice to say, this ruined a good 1-2 days of the short trip. Would not recommend staying here, particularly for the duration of the construction of the mansion across the alley (it's early days as they're still building the foundation of the house) unless you hope to be woken up at 7am everyday, and to have your privacy completely violated by people standing six feet away from you in bed. Don't anticipate getting any help or hospitality from Alicia on that front either.