After reading the other positive reviews on this listing, my girlfriend and I happily booked a reservation here for a weekend in LA, expecting to stay with a friendly host at a great location. Unfortunately, after we had the exact opposite experience, I want to strongly advise that you avoid booking this place or any other listed by this host.
The issue began over the check-in time, which we knew was listed as 4 pm. Hoping for an earlier check-in time, I asked the host if that would be possible, and he kindly offered to check my girlfriend and me in at 2 pm.
Up to this point, the host had not indicated to us that he would need to be present at the property to let us in. Under the assumption that we would let ourselves in via a lock box or some type of similar system, my girlfriend and I were unexpectedly delayed and planning to arrive at 3 pm instead. But at 2:22 pm, our host sent these two messages, giving us 8 minutes’ notice:
“If you don’t get here at 2:30pm I won’t be able to check you in until 7pm…”
“I had to leave what I was doing to accommodate your needs, but now I have to go…”
At this point, I responded:
“Sorry, we are running a bit behind. We didn’t realize you needed to be there to let us in, or that there was any sort of time constraint!”
“Is there any way we could access the property before 7?”
The host became immediately combative and told us he would be unable to let us in before 7 — three hours later than the check-in time listed on his property’s Airbnb page. (He also inaccurately accused me of asking to check in as early as noon, before later admitting that was not the case.) As we are visiting from out of the state, we were left with no place to stay with our luggage for the next several hours.
After an unproductive exchange of messages with the host, we told him we were looking for other accommodations, and asked if he would refund our visit, as we no longer felt comfortable staying with someone who had established himself to be so unnecessarily aggressive and confrontational — especially given that we would be staying with him in his home. At this point, the host encouraged us to cancel, making clear he no longer wanted us to stay at his property.
Ultimately, we booked a cheap hotel for the weekend instead. When we asked the host to issue even a partial refund for the weekend, he refused to return even a cent of the $400 we had paid for our two-night stay, and challenged us to take the issue to Airbnb. Their support team gave us this response:
“I regret to inform you that the host has not allowed any refunds for this reservation. As much as I would love to help with the refund, we are also bound to respect the host decision and to follow the rules and restriction set on this reservation.”
At the end of the day, I’m sympathetic to the argument that we could have told the host we would be running a bit late, even if he never told us we needed to be there exactly at 2. However, we find it troubling that he kept all $400 we paid him for the weekend. His combative and rude attitude, and his refusal to accept any fault in the matter, were also troubling.
If you’re considering booking this place, please know that if you have a dispute with the host over any matter, he will likely blame the situation entirely on you and refuse to reimburse you under any circumstances.