We rented Emma's condo because it got good reviews and is near Santa Monica beach. When we arrived, the condition of the condo was clean and neat, although we found there were only 4 towels and we booked 5 people stay. There were no additional sheets for the sleeping sofa in the living room other than the two queen beds in each of the bedrooms. I communicated to Emma asking for more towels and sheets. She first said other guests must have taken the towels, then suggested me to do laundry to cope. So we scrabbled the first night. The second morning she wrote back to say that she wished to take care of us better and asked exactly what we needed. I again conveyed to her that we needed one extra towel and 4 sheets for sleeping. She was able to provide that to me with 2 additional towels and 2 additional sheets the second day afternoon. After I got the extra towels and sheets, I thanked her. She then asked, I quote, "I hope you don't leave a bad review. It has been so hard that for some reason people during the pandemic have been very mean and disrespectful with taking things...I don't know why people think they can just leave with things like hangers or irons or sheets."
Then on the day after we checked out, I got a message from her with images of two towels and some small stains on them. Her test stated that "I understand that accidents happen, once you post a positive 5 star review, I will leave this damage. Does that sound good with you?" I was dumbfounded. Not only I was not sure how those stains came about, the fact she is pressuring me to write a favorable review and a 5-star one made me wonder if those previous reviews were retrieved by the same tactic.
I think the condo is in good clean condition and it is about 8 blocks away from the beach. However, the interaction with the host makes me not wanting to return to the unit.