The hosts were on vacation but they were still great at communicating and checking in on us via messaging and the cohost Carol was nice on greeting my bf who checked in first. Instructions checking in were helpful with the pictures. I only met her on the last day checking out and she was very kind.
The location was excellent as we wanted to be close to downtown, Hollywood, and the Microsoft theater for a show that weekend. The surrounding neighborhood feels a little sketchy but not terrible, things could be worse. There’s a convenience store close by which was helpful to get snacks and drinks for our stay. There’s a separate guest kitchen that was cute but I didn’t see it until leaving.
My stay would’ve been almost perfect but I had an awkward incident on our first night going out of the house. While leaving around Saturday at 11 PM, a male tenant in one of the lower units had approached us quickly outside when our Lyft just arrived. At first I thought he was another Airbnber who wanted to make friendly small talk but it wasn’t, and he had a brief chat essentially about his work hours, trying to be extra quiet entering/exiting, how the house owner removed padding from the stairs, etc.
It didn’t bother me at first until I started to think more about it and noticing my bf looked uncomfortable about what just happened once we got into the Lyft. It seriously ruined the rest of the night for me because then I had a constant thin layer of paranoia about not trying to upset this “boogeyman” guy again since I did not know if he was capable of doing anything crazy and it kinda felt stalker-ish the way he timed his exit/talk with us. The house is old/historic and naturally had many pre-existing conditions beyond our control which made me feel more upset.
To enter into the unit, which us the uppermost, there are quite a lot of doors, gates, and stairs to climb. Take that into consideration if stairs may be an issue for you health/fitness wise. One gate outside and another door getting into the house. Then there is a flight of stairs that are SUPER loud and creaky even while taking off your shoes. And the gate to get into the unit with a code has a wind chime that sounds off on top every time you enter and exit. While I understand that is a good security measure, it just felt like there were noisy conditions made beyond our control and it was lightweight stressful trying not to piss off the guy again the rest of our stay.
The Airbnb unit itself is pretty clean but the rest of the house and exterior was not In great shape. Outside the house there were a few abandoned random items also and on one side of the house it seemed like there were old chairs. A few times when we came back it seemed like 1-2 people, hopefully lower unit tenants and not randoms were sitting there silently late in the night that seemed like they did not want to be seen. They didn’t say anything but sometimes it felt awkward and uncomfortable knowing someone is sitting in the dark corner with their backs behind you. A cutesy stray cat who didn’t have a collar seemed to have made its home outside the house but it didn’t feel too hygienic. Bring some allergy pills if you may be sensitive.
The room itself was just as described/pictured but I did want to note there is another narrow set of stairs to get there for bedroom #2 and watch your head on half of the room since it’s lower/sloped and both bathrooms are on the lower level. Supposedly all the rooms were booked out to Airbnbers but I didn’t see anyone or have issues waiting for a bathroom. Since there’s a lot of shared areas/rooms there’s natural considerate rules they have to follow but in that sense I felt a little less relaxed than usual having to remember all of them.
I don’t want to scare anyone from booking this place since overall it was definitely fine for the price but I just wish there were more transparency on the number of other tenants/units and in particular this boogeyman tenant. Hopefully whoever the homeowner is can fix the stairs! I definitely understand the pros/cons and issues Airbnb can create in cities as I live/work in SF closely with their short term rental program. I hope no drama was created and we did awkwardly run into the guy while we were heading out to the airport.
Just giving an honest heads up to all who may book this place in the future!