Short Review:
Solid apartment, good/fun location, as long as you play by the rules (strictly) all should be fine.
Longer Review:
My family has rented out our apartment since the early days of Airbnb and I’ve stayed in numerous Airbnbs as a guest. With that perspective, I offer these thoughts.
The location of the unit is very good. A few blocks away from Abbot Kinney’s commercial district. That’s why we picked it. The apartment itself is a no frills but clean and satisfactory studio-type unit. All the amenities listed were made available.
What was disappointing is that in my mind, the great appeal of Airbnb is that guests are treated more like actual guests than like hotel customers. For us as owners, we are casual, completely available and try to make visitors feel like guests who happen to be borrowing our west village apartment while we are away. Treating visitors with warmth or at least collegiality is what makes Airbnb so special. When renting The Venice Roost, we got a more impersonal or business-like approach. This was totally fine until the last day. On checkout day, like an idiot, I lost track of time and missed the checkout time of 11am. At about 12 I looked at my phone and had numerous missed calls emails and messages. Kirk got me on the phone to curtly inform me of my lateness. I apologized a few times for putting him in a bad position (he had another guest coming at 2 and the cleaning crew was waiting for me to remove my things before starting their work). I really felt bad and rushed to the unit (luckily I was just a few blocks away). Upon arriving to the unit, Kirk’s property manager laid into me about being an hour late and informing me of all of the problems I had created for him. I explained that I’ve already discussed it with the owner, and that that’s why I was rushing to remove my things, but the manager persisted to explain that I was acting in bad faith. It was bizarre, a bit too aggressive and left a bad taste. A few hours later I reached out to Kirk again to apologize, because I really did feel bad about not checking out in time and putting him in a compromised situation, but never heard back…