I will begin by saying that this is my 4th Airbnb that I have tried out. When I booked this one I shared with Maria that I have not had good experiences with Airbnb’s and my hesitancy to try it again. She assured me that her Airbnb would definitely meet my expectations. I spent hours searching and reading reviews and was hopeful that this one would blow me away. Sadly this stay did not blow me away. I want to share some things because they conflict with many of the reviews that I read which made me think that this place would be perfect for us. The day we arrived we walked through the place while we waited for the hostess to come and show us a few things she thought would be good for us to know. We started to see these rather large flies in the different window and doorways. They were especially present in the Spa. This was an instant red flag for me. She had a can of Raid in one of the cabinets and we made good use of this for the first day and 1/2 until she was able to get an exterminator out to the house. Apparently something had died (perhaps a rodent) and generated the flies and unfortunately this was not addressed before we checked in. We killed at least 15 - 20 flies over that 1 -2 days. We ended up never using the Spa as this is where the first batch of flies were discovered and completely turned us off.
The property could use a power wash on the outside. It’s one thing to have several balconies and beautiful views of the hills, but the windows have clearly not been cleaned in quite a while, there are large spider webs in all the corners of the windows as well. Speaking of the cobwebs outside, many of the windows and doorways inside have cobwebs as well as the light fixtures. As I am not a fan of spiders or dust or cobwebs, I went to the local target and brought back a swifter dust mop and dusted all the webs on the inside windows for my own piece of mind. Did the same for the light fixture over the dining room table as I was tired of sitting and looking up at the many webs over our heads while we ate. For the nightly cost to stay in this property, I think my expectation of staying in a place that feels luxurious is reasonable. I have stayed in luxury hotels in different parts of the world and unfortunately this did not live up to that level. The furniture is dated and the decor is very non-cohesive. The 2nd bedroom on the 2nd floor could use a makeover. The furniture is dated, the bed is squeaky, the bathroom tub needs re-caulking, the rock bath mat in the tub was a bad decision. There is a picture sitting on the very dated dresser that is hiding some damage to the wall which would only take a little spackle and paint to fix.
The kitchen could use a face lift. It would take very little to replace all the pots and pans and dishes in the kitchen. The pots are old and worn and not even neatly in the pot cabinet. Literally just thrown down in a cabinet and it’s a hodgepodge of pots accumulated over time I am guessing. The mugs all have the scent of coffee which is a turn off for a tea drinker. There is a water pot for tea I presume but the pot was rusted inside and had left over water in it. We never used it. The good news is that the oven, fridge, microwave and stove top were clean. The pantry has several used spices and such in it which may be okay for some but I would prefer to have a few fresh spices on my stay which would cost so little but would go a long way in making me feel like my investment was worth it. The pantry shelves are very sticky and there are things thrown in there over who knows how long of a period of time that we didn’t use any of as I went and purchased my own kitchen basics to be used. Thankfully the kitchen was clean with the exception of the windows and doors and the rope at the back door because apparently the knob was broken at some point was very tacky to me.
Overall I would imagine that if you are interested in an Airbnb experience you could do much better for your money than this place. I believe this place is benefiting from its size and location as it is in the hills and views, if you can get pass looking through very dirty windows, are spectacular. Definitely not someplace I would stay again.
I gave a rating of 3 primarily for the location and the views. Had this not been the case I would have definitely rated this place a 2.