I personally had a horrible experience with this AirBnB and with the host as well. Although the images and other reviews seemed promising, both my friend and I who stayed were extremely upset with our two night stay here.
First of all, the night before our check in date on Tuesday, around 11 PM, we sent a message to the host asking about a refund because my friend’s car had broke down and thus we were having trouble with transportation. The next day on Wednesday, we tried to call the host several times in the morning around 7 AM, and there was no voicemail or even response. He messaged us around 3 PM, so 1 hour before our checkin, but it was not related to our cancellation. We had found transportation anyway checked in at 4 PM. This was especially inconvenient since we were traveling from North California, which is a 6+ hour drive from the AirBnb.
The message the host sent us was about how the gate was broken and that we would have to manually open the heavy gate. Manual opening of the gate required two people. When I opened it alone, I had to pull on the extremely dirty chain, which left my hands black after. Getting the key was not really a problem, and finding the apartment itself wasn’t either.
The AirBnB itself was not too bad. There was a no shoes policy, which could have contributed to the cleanliness. We noticed however that there was some lint, dust, or specs of dust on the carpet in the bedroom. The rooms matched the photos.
One of the first things we checked was the Wi-Fi, which did not work. Of course we reached out to the host, but there was an extremely slow response and the Wi-Fi issue was not resolved throughout our entire stay. My friend especially relied on this Wi-Fi, as we booked this AirBnB to get a quieter space so she could do her interviews for internships in peace. She was extremely nervous and upset that she had to interview on her phone and also go somewhere else for Wi-Fi.
Another issue was that the driveway was lower than expected. I drive a Lexus IS250 stocked, which is not too low, but my front scraped every time I left the driveway, which added to the annoyance of manually opening and closing the parking gate. Sometimes, we would find that the gate was open, or half opened. And even though the host had informed us to keep the gate closed, we weren’t sure if we should have left the gate alone.
Throughout our stay, the host took extremely long times to respond to all of our concerns. Although our stay was short, we felt like the host’s inability to respond to calls and texts in a timely matter had a significant impact on our experience. He would send us automated messages about quiet hours and whatnot, but not respond to our concerns.
On our last night (our second night), someone had taken our parking spot. We contacted Max, and of course, nothing was done in the end. The car had stayed in our designated spot overnight as well, but luckily we had to check out in the morning anyway.
Overall, despite the host being a superhost, this was one of my worst experiences with AirBnb. Although I understand that some of these issues were out of the host’s control, the failure to respond to our concerns and calls for hours was what ultimately led to our negative experience with the host.
Though the host had offered $50 compensation, that is minimal compared to the amount we had to pay for the AirBnB. Additionally, it does not account for the broken (and dirty gate), scratching the bumper of my car, not having our parking spot for half our stay, no Wi-Fi, and travel we had to do to look for free and accessible Wi-Fi.
In conclusion, although this is my personal experience, I would not recommend this Airbnb or the Host.