My old friends from high school and I chose this Airbnb since it was close to downtown San Diego and had several large beds for our group. We also chose it based on the low price relative to other Airbnb’s in the area. We later realized that it was likely a low price because there were multiple problems with the location, condition, and feel of the house that made it an unpleasant experience.
If you stay at this Airbnb, you will hear every plane that lands at the San Diego International Airport, all day and all night. Each plane flies within 400 feet of the Airbnb during final approach, so it’s LOUD. The Airbnb listing indicated the windows are quad-paned which we verified, but they did nothing to ensure it would be “totally quiet inside” like the Airbnb description noted.
The bed mattresses were loud as well. The springs groaned and creaked whenever you tossed and turned, waking up your neighbor and ensuring neither of you received a good night’s sleep. Imagine the noisy mattresses and the airplane engines outside your window while you’re trying to sleep and you can get a basic idea of how your night is going to go if you stay here.
The shower windowsill had what looked like a large, long strip of black mold on it. That’s hardly something you want to look at while you’re taking a shower. Also, the window for one of the bedrooms could not be closed from the inside because the handle was broken. We had to walk outside all the way around the back to push it closed, which is “tons of fun” to do at 1 AM when you’re about to hit the sack after a long day driving down to San Diego. Speaking of driving, there were several times during our stay when we had to park our car several blocks away from the house. We were assured when we booked that there would be plenty of parking near the Airbnb.
These problems would be the only issues regarding the Airbnb if not for the unexpected call we got while driving down to San Diego. The host advised us not to use one of the beds because it had a stain left by a previous tenant. We were told to use the sofa-bed instead. The stain was probably urine because the whole place smelled of it when we finally arrived. That’s pretty gross by any standard. The host had left the front and back doors open before we arrived to try to air out the place, but we could still smell it the entire duration of our stay. The host advised they would call the following morning to remedy the issue, but that never happened. We finally reached the host days after our stay had ended, at which point they only agreed to waive the cleaning fee after negotiating up from half the cleaning fee. It didn’t seem they were in any rush to remedy the problem like the note on the fridge door promised they would.