Maria’s home is beautiful, clean, in a great location and is great for a stay of a few nights, but I would not stay here long term.
As part of our 8 week stay in Los Angeles, we stayed in Maria’s space for nearly 2 weeks and felt more like unexpected guests imposing on someone’s personal space, rather than Airbnb guests expected to follow a standard rules.
The Airbnb space is connected to the host’s main house, separated by a glass door with a key code. There is no curtain covering the glass door, so theoretically, guests can be seen at any time by the hosts. Additionally, some lights and circuits in the Airbnb space are controlled by switches and circuit breakers downstairs (a circuit controlling the dishwasher blew right before we left). You can regularly hear the host’s family downstairs, which also made us very aware of any conversations we were having in our space.
As soon as you enter the front door, you see a floating bookshelf (as advertised) that is shrink-wrapped, so the books are off limits. Sleeping/lying on the *white* couch is not allowed, but the mattress in the bedroom is so old that it creaks when you sit/move around on it. We were only provided with 4 towels for 2 people for a 2 week stay (yes, I should have asked for more, but at this point I didn’t feel like asking and didn’t think I should have to). The TV is located upstairs, in a loft space that is all but off limits - there’s nowhere to sit, the TV is only connected to a fire stick in the host’s name and the space is used to store the host’s Pilates machine (also off-limits, per the house manual). My boyfriend and I ended up buying a small TV just to enjoy our downtime. Though I should have been more careful in my review of the amenities, in my 6+ years as an Airbnb user, that standard amenity is not something I’ve previously needed to confirm.
Additionally, the kitchenette is so small that it’s not very usable - we questioned whether that decision was intentional, since we have now stayed in a number of guest houses with highly functional kitchenettes over the past few weeks. The kitchenette table is big enough for a single person to dine (and the white couch isn’t exactly meal-friendly). There were no cleaning supplies (not even a mop/broom) for us to use, which is hard for a near 2-week stay.
Lastly, we forgot a box of Pyrex containers when we left and the host did not respond to our attempt to retrieve it (though she did text us looking for a tray that we moved ~8 feet from the piano to the bar cart).
There’s some work that needs to be put into this space if it’s going to be more user-friendly. There should not be off-limits items in an Airbnb - I couldn’t help but think that, if you are concerned with people misusing your coffee table books, perhaps they should not be sleeping within yards of your family.