This review is for the apartment on Grattan street in Cole Valley.
Also, this is for a 3 month stay, shorter stays might not go through the same situations we did.
-The neighbourhood is very safe. Even walking my dog late at night as a woman, I never felt insecure.
-Restaurants, drugstore, market and public transport really close to the house.
-We don’t intend to write a bad review and we did mostly enjoy our stay but we also wanted to be as honest and the most forthcoming with every experience we had with our first long term situation while on the road.
-Jan did answer pretty quickly to every situation happening (so that was a big plus)
-The building next to our house was under construction during the whole time of our stay) every day of the week starting at 7h15 am we were awaken by the noise of construction and it would only end around 4h30pm. The construction will be on going for quite some time because there was no difference between the time we arrived until the end of our stay.
-Directly on the other side of the house, is the backyard of a primary school. Again from early in the morning until late in the afternoon, you can hear children screaming, crying and a loud school bell.
-The upstair’s tenant smokes weed everyday and all the aeration conduct are routed together. It will smell inside your house just as much as if you were smoking when you start the heat.
-We noticed low pressure from the kitchen sink and that the water had a orangy/brownish colour. When we informed Jan, he told us to fix it ourself and that the colour was probably just a little bit of rust. We waited a little, but nothing changed. We told him again but nothing got taking care of. Later during our stay, the water got fully brown and ruined white clothes that I was washing.
-At the beginning of our stay, we heard mice, Jan told us to wait for more incidents before intervening. We had to tell him that it happened again and then he contacted an exterminator but they couldn’t do anything because the mice were in the aeration conduct. He ended up putting wiring outside the house so the mice couldn’t get in (but they were already inside). We kept on hearing the mice once in the while during our stay, but because we couldn’t see them or find any droppings, we kinda let it go. Later during our stay, these mice got sprayed by a skunk and the whole house got invaded by the strong smell. That night we had to move the mattress in the living (the room where it smelled the least) because it was barely breathable in the rest of the apartment. When we told Jan, he said we would try to find us a place to move. Few hours passed which let us the time to ventilate the house and get rid of a part of the smell. So we informed Jan that we wouldn’t leave anymore but that we would appreciate candles to help. Jan provide us the money to buy candles which is kind, but if we wouldn’t have been able to get rid of the smell ourself we would have been stuck with it for hours without any news.
-Somebody is taking care of emptying the garbages and recycle bins but sometimes we would comeback home and the gate door would be left unlocked or waste was on the ground or they forgot our house for the week so it would be overflowing. Jan took care of the situation pretty quickly and it got fix.
-When you stay for over 30 days in an airb&b you become a tenant according to the California state law. Jan told us that he wanted to show our place to a future buyer/tenant or whatever we aren’t quite sure. Because we didn’t know about the law, we disagreed in showing the place during our stay. Jan told us we didn’t have the choice so we compromised and he came with the person during a moment we were at home. Jan and the woman came to our place on a rainy/stormy day and walked in the whole house with their boots on (the woman was wearing rain boots just to mention how disgusting it was outside)
All and all its a long and mostly un-positive review but in our experience this is the review that was necessary for our stay in Cole Valley.