Breathtaking Location With Shortcomings:
This house built in 1953 feels and looks more like something from the 70s. The balcony overlooks spectacular rugged cliffs with prime viewing of the sunsets.
The house itself is serviceable, but not great. The picture windows in the kitchen and dining area have no blinds or drapes, being in full view of the public. None of the windows have screens, and while bugs aren’t a major problem, the flies can be annoying, especially in the kitchen. The appliances in the casita appear to have no power, and there was no obvious way to turn them on or check the plug (built into the wall). I asked the host about the room-temp fridge, but got no response.
Joseph, the host, should get credit for being generally responsive. We could be friends if we were out sharing a beer or a cup of coffee.
We arrived on a late Sunday afternoon–hot, tired, and aggravated by the traffic from L.A. At least we could rinse off and take a cool dip in the pool. Or not. The pool had a fair amount of floating debris, and the floor was dusty. The hose to the Pool Vac was covered with a sheet of dead bugs. Apparently, there had been wind the day before, but the host had two opportunities to address it. The listing mentions a Jacuzzi but according to the host there were no massage jets–just a warm bath.
The lower floor of the house had a musty odor. There was a single tray of ice in the freezer with dark particulate matter in the ice cubes, and a half-used bag of ice twisted closed. The oven had some black charred material, and a moth flew out when we first opened it. Under the staircase was a fairly impressive dust bunny. In addition to a decent king-sized bed, there were two single cots in the master, but not a single chair to sit on. Windows and sills were dirty, some with cobwebs and dead bugs. Many of the window hand-cranks were broken. Most of the fans were dirty, with caked-on sheets of lint. Two replacement fans were brought the same day, but when one was turned on, a cloud of lint sprayed across the floor, and coated my shorts with a thick layer of brown dirt. What if that had gotten into someone’s eyes?
Joseph arranged for the cleaning crew to come back the next morning, even though “enhanced cleaning” had been done the day before. They worked for 2.5 hours. The host asked us if we were satisfied and we texted “yes”. It was a nuisance to have our first full day disrupted by a cleaning crew. We didn’t follow them around or do a full inspection of the house–a big mistake!. Little did we know that the text would be used as a weapon against our claim of “unsanitary conditions”. We were later surprised to see cobwebs with dead insects remaining on a window sill, as well as other dirty windows and sills which still had not been addressed. The next morning my wife was nauseated when she almost poured her coffee into a filthy coffee cup with dried, encrusted food, found at the front of the cupboard. Host offered to have the cleaning crew come back yet again, but at this point we had lost confidence in them, and felt safer just washing whatever we needed ourselves. We were also getting tired of our “vacation” being disrupted. Why wasn’t it cleaned to basic standards the first time, before we got there? We had three previous wonderful experiences at AirBnb vacation rental homes and never experienced anything like this. Prior hosts gave us favorable reviews as guests.
Joseph did offer us something for the substandard conditions: half of the $499 cleaning fee, and “free” pool & Jacuzzi heat. But the water temperature of the pool was fine, and we had already been told there were no jets in the spa. That was not a reasonable offer, and at that point the quality of our stay was adversely affected to a significant extent, by what AirBnb terms “travel issues”: (1) unsanitary/unclean conditions, (2) misrepresentation of a feature of the property in the listing (the spa), and (3) vermin not disclosed in the listing (the critters were noted on the check in sheet upon arrival). I’m fond of animals and the skunk and racoon sightings didn’t really bother me. The pool fence gate is not up to San Diego city code, which could be a hazard if small children were in tow.
AirBnb has been unprofessional, frustrating, and incomptent. We had to re-tell our story with each new rep, who didn’t know basic things like how to make a spouse “point of contact”. We finally contacted a supervisor (Juan), who reviewed our documentation and offered us 20% off the entire stay plus half of the cleaning fee, later increasing to 30%, which we accepted. The next day we got an email that Juan had summarily closed the case and given us 10% off the first night only, this sudden reversal apparently being due to receipt of the text we sent the host that we were “satisfied” with the cleaning job. Can you imagine if we found a dead skunk in the bed and AirBnb’s position was we didn’t deserve a refund because the problem was “corrected”? Juan was nowhere to be found and rep Preet contacted Juan while we were on the phone. To our shock, Juan denied ever making any such offer, even though the call was ostensibly recorded. An Airbnb supervisor had called us liars! Two other supervisors ghosted us (Jackeline and Paolo). We were to receive a call from a higher-up in 24-48 hours, but have heard nothing after five days.
TL;DR
This is an amazing location.
The host is responsive and a nice guy, but the property was not prepared for guests.
AirBnb support is terrible.