Perhaps many years of hosting have led to Sher becoming careless with her approach, or perhaps she was having a rough month personally, but the glowing reviews I read about this listing were not reflective of my experience here. I have never given an unfavorable review to a host before, but I feel it is only responsible for me to share my honest evaluation.
I had booked a month-long stay with Sher, looking forward to a sparkling clean home with a personable host on the property – I’m a frequent traveler to LA and have had some of the best experiences staying with several lovely ladies in their beautiful homes!
My experience here went downhill after the initial correspondences, during which Sher was quick to respond over text and offered to give me a ride from the cafe I was waiting in as my flight had arrived before her stipulated check-in time. My living quarters were not very clean: I found hairs from the previous guest (both head and nether regions) in the bathroom as well as grime build-up on the toilet seat and behind the knick-knacks on the sink. The build-up of dust and dog hair around the shared spaces triggered my allergies. Sher later apologized about the mess as her usual housekeeper was on long-term leave, and so she was handling the cleaning by herself – I inquired about any plans for a replacement housekeeper but Sher insisted that she did a better job than her housekeeper would’ve. I understand that these things can happen, and so I cleaned the bathroom myself with equipment I purchased on my own.
Standards of cleanliness vary from person-to-person and so this in itself wouldn’t have warranted a negative review, but what truly unsettled me was the degree to which I felt my every movement in her house was scrutinized, judged, and met with suspicion. From derisive comments about why I had bought and used “so much tissue” because it was “very non-ecological” (I had bought paper towels to wipe down the surfaces in the bathroom on Day 1), passive-aggressive remarks about things like how I placed her throw pillows in the closet, to a full-on yelling interrogation later in the week because she was upset that I locked my bedroom door when I left the house – she had abruptly texted me “We need to speak when you get back.” while I was at lunch with some friends, and I cut it short to come back because it sounded grave. I had to calmly explain to her that as a single woman traveling alone, locking your room door is only natural for a sense of security especially since she prefers to leave both her front and back doors unlocked throughout the day; she still had the master key to the guest bedroom, and so I was not obstructing her entry in case of an emergency. For some reason, she was taken by the idea that I was doing so as an act of deliberate offense to her to say that I did not trust her or like her, and raised her voice at me like I was an errant teenager in need of a scolding. After I made it clear that this was not an appropriate way to speak to a guest, she backed down and corrected her tone, but this would turn out to be just the first of such incidents.
I appreciate that some hosts may offer a hotel-like service of refreshing your room everyday, which I would’ve been very accepting of and grateful for, but this felt like pure invasion of privacy with accompanying commentary about what’s in your trash and where you’ve placed things. She would be insistent on letting herself into the guest bedroom whenever suited her fancy, and when I later told her that I would prefer she didn’t let herself into my room while I was away, her response was that it’s her house and she can do as she pleases – “I’ve been doing this for 10 years, and your unique, personal discomfort is not my responsibility”. Verbatim.
Our communication was always laden with such condescension, in a holier-than-thou “This is how we do things over here” way that can only lead you to wonder if there might be an underlying racial element involved. Staying with Sher for a month was like living in a real-life Jekyll and Hyde: we would sometimes exchange pleasantries in person if she was in a good mood, and the next thing I knew I would be on the receiving end of a slew of antagonistic texts while I’m out and I would then have to talk her through her latest wave of hysteria. I never knew what was going to set her off, and she never seemed to understand that there are certain boundaries you do not cross when it comes to interacting with Airbnb guests.
Other notes: Sher has a male roommate with a 3rd dog (neither are on the listing) living in close proximity to the guest bedroom (the doors face each other). He was very pleasant compared to her.
Overall I found Sher to be a bully who seemed to take delight in engaging her guests in relentless arguments, and loved to brandish the phrase “none of my guests in 10 years have ever done/mentioned this before” whenever she doesn’t get her way; for me, none of my previous hosts since I’ve started using Airbnb in 2012 have ever been this unpleasant or temperamental. I would have left after Day 2 if I had been able to find alternative accommodations, but I put a significant amount of money down on this long-stay reservation and I don’t think this would have qualified me for a refund under Airbnb’s cancellation policy.
Despite what the good reviews say, I would not in good faith recommend anyone stay here, especially long-term.