Elena was very attentive in giving us directions and instructions on how to get into the condo. The condo was clean and plenty of room for 2 people.
However, on our first morning in Venice we had a very costly and negative experience relating to the parking in the condo. We rented a car, and part of the reason we chose this condo was because it included a garage. On our first night at the condo, we returned from dinner and drinks with friends, to find that the guests staying in the upstairs unit had hogged up the entire garage. It was very late, so we were trying to be reasonable and polite, by not bothering Elena or the upstairs guests, as they had several small (and VERY LOUD) children with them. So we chose to park in front of the garage, blocking half of the condo's garage, but still not blocking in the upstairs guests that were talking up half of our space.
As we parked the car, we MADE IT A POINT to check and DOUBLE CHECK that we were also not blocking the next-door neighbors garage door or driveway, behind us one house over.
We woke in the morning to find our car had been towed. There was only 1 text message from Elena, early in the morning, asking if it was our car. No phone calls or further attempts at contacting us were made. No one knocked on our door.
Of course this left us very upset. Apparently the next door neighbor claimed that we were blocking his garage. We are reasonable people, we were very aware, and made it a point to check. Had we not checked, I would have been more inclined to still leave a nice review and chalk it up to our own fault for not being aware. We vacation in SoCal often, we are from Long Beach originally, and we are very aware of LA county's desire to tow cars if you aren't careful.......
We asked Elena to help cover the cost of the tow, as we felt there was definitely not enough contact made to find out if it was our car, and regardless of that, the fact that we knew beyond doubt that we didn't block the driveway of the neighbor.
The pictures provided DID NOT show evidence of us blocking him in, yet Elena declined to help us in any way recover the $366 tow fee and ticket fee.
Further more, if you have upstairs tenants sharing the condo at the same time as you, don't expect to sleep in. You can hear EVERY FOOT STEP that occurs upstairs. And the entire weekend there was a gang of young children running and jumping and stomping around. Which isn't Elena's fault. But just be aware, there isn't a lot of sound privacy.
Long story short: DON'T park outside of the garage even if it is the garage that you paid to park in.