We travel often for work, and have been using Airbnb for years for the privacy and the invaluable access to a full kitchen. It is hard to find a quiet, free-standing home in San Francisco, and we were initially excited to find this one, which was explicitly advertised as being good for professionals. The neighborhood is quiet, the decor is quirky but fine, the layout of the home itself is good, and the backyard space is the best thing about it. It is also really helpful to have a washer and dryer available, and the iron was particularly high quality.
Unfortunately, as soon as we entered, we were assaulted with the smell of animals. Air Concierge assured me they had a no pet policy and suggested that the kitchen and dining room get stuffy and that we open some windows. This is not old house stuffy, this is definitely animals, and likely ones who have urinated in the home over the span of years. Every space reeks. We also found pet odor spray under the sink and animal hair on the fabric frame of the bed downstairs (they did a good job of cleaning the pet hair up in general), and a magnet on the fridge that says “All I care about is my dog…”, all of which tragicomically validated our initial impulse. I have never been in a home, Airbnb or otherwise, that smells this badly.
To their credit, the people at Air Concierge are excellent communicators, and appear to have been misled by their local team (this is our second bad experience with an offsite concierge service, and we will try to deal with local hosts from now on). I believe they did not know about this, though I have no idea how. Their other caveats were spot on (steep stairs, no A/C, etc). They initially offered to reimburse me for candles and a fan (I couldn’t find the box fan in the closet, though it is there, tucked in a corner, but we bought an oscillating fan that we left), and then decided to reimburse the cleaning fee, which will about cover what we’ve paid in candles, fans, linens, etc. I also washed everything that could be washed, vacuumed, and sprayed the floors, which improved the smell, but there is nothing that will get rid of the smell. If we hadn’t already paid so much and didn’t have important work to do the next day, we would have left immediately. It took three days of open windows, candles, and cleaning before it was bearable, and it was still unpleasant.
This is a lived-in house—they didn’t even bother to clean off the whiteboard on the fridge covered in drawings and a typical adolescent obscenity. The kitchen smells strongly like cooking (and so, so much animal), and there is no shelf space because the owner’s supplies and food are all still there. It is not clear what we can use, so I didn’t touch anything. The appliances are first-rate, and the owner appears to be an avid chef. I had to set the time to get the oven to preheat, so make sure it’s still set up before using, but it’s a top quality unit. We cooked all of our meals and found everything we needed. It was particularly nice to have an electric kettle to make tea.
The bedrooms smell like dog and the people who live there (the upstairs room offered cannabis incense and the closet still smells like gym shoes, to give you an idea), and the basement only has one window that opens (in the bathroom, which didn’t have a screen so we bought one, though they do have window fans that could have been installed. That window is also accessible from the street, so I wouldn’t leave it open at night), so it smells like sweat from the gym area mixed with dog. As it is really a basement, it is on the damp side. A dehumidifier would help, and the small air purifier that is there was welcome, but much too small for the space. It’s too bad, because they’ve set it up very nicely. There are lights outside that shine all night, and the blinds aren’t light-blocking, so bring an eye mask. All of the towels were damp when we arrived, and the downstairs shower head was partially unscrewed, so it sprayed water all over the bathroom. Luckily it was an easy fix, but why was it left that way by those that cleaned the unit?
The heat is very efficient upstairs, and though it tops out at 74 degrees, that’s probably enough. However, the basement gets colder quickly, so if you plan to sleep down there, you may have to run it longer than you would otherwise. The Nest thermostat has a lot of timers set (though we did erase a couple), so if you turn it up or down, make sure you check in regularly, because it will turn itself off every hour or so according to a set schedule that is too complex to spend the time deleting. It kept us mostly warm even while we kept the windows open to get fresh air in here.
The beds are covered in very crinkly mattress protectors. We brought our own linens, and I used their quilt to cushion it a bit so it’s not so loud. We also bought a second comforter for the downstairs because the one they had wasn’t very warm.
The trash had not been picked up that week, so the bins were full when we arrived, and unfortunately, we had more garbage than it would hold. There was also construction down the street that despite asking, we were not told about (it was pretty well entrenched, so while it might have started that week, it is unlikely). Again, they should probably look for a new local team.
All in all, I would recommend Air Concierge as humans, but not as hosts. They have no control over