First we want to say writing a negative review is the opposite thing we both enjoy as we have had so many wonderful and stellar Airbnb experiences and prefer to focus on the positives. But we want to be honest about our experience to help others in making a good decision that fits their needs.
We booked this Airbnb because of its great reviews. Typically when we see 5 star reviews with one or 2 negative reviews we throw those away as outliers. I encourage others to not see this review as an outlier, but a cautionary warning.
Our stay started off by not being able to get inside due to a faulty lock. When we called the host (Nick) he told us to go around to the back and enter through the alley. I asked how to get through the gate and was told ‘I think your husband can figure it out -he is a big guy.’ What? Are we being watched? There was no Ring doorbell or cameras so this was an odd response. When we got inside, he told us he would get a locksmith to fix the lock. I suggested he reset the lock with a different combo and it worked- no need to call a locksmith, although my husband did replace the batteries when the lock died again.

What was more concerning is that we later were coming in with our small dog (this was allowed) and only to have 2 large labs from the attached duplex resident’s unit run up to us startling us and our dog. Since the dogs were off-leash and there was no owner in sight this was very concerning as it would be foolish to just assume they were friendly dogs. We saw the door was open to the unit and called out asking if the dogs were friendly. The man came out and sarcastically stated ‘oh no they are really mean ‘ and followed it with ‘the dogs are fine’ and walked back inside.
The dogs were constantly a presence as the occupant to the attached duplex left his door open to the unit for the dogs to wander in and out. The only way to get into our unit is to go through front door and be greeted by them. We knew the grassy space in the yard was to be shared, but it seemed irresponsible for the person next door to let his dogs take over the space like this and not maintain control of his dogs.
We thought we should reach out to our host about this, and when I went online to the Airbnb app, I saw something shocking about our host! Surfstyle is run by a team and one of the pictures of the team members (Nick) was of the guy in the attached unit who owns the large dogs! This made things very uncomfortable as what can we say to someone who has already been rude to us and he is actually our host? Nowhere in the listing was this disclosed or that his 2 large dogs live on the premises.
I saw him in his unit (door always open) and asked if he was the host and does he live there? He didn’t come out to introduce himself but said ‘yes’ in a way that felt a bit like he didn’t want me to know this fact. I was also surprised that when we had lock issues he didn’t just walk next door to help but talked us through coming through the alley. One would think that a 5 star host
would do so.
We are surprised no one else has mentioned this situation on their reviews as neighbors stopped by to see him and his dogs while we were there so clearly this isn’t just a ‘host checking on the property’ situation.
Perhaps many of the other reviews are based on other team members being the assigned host and not Nick, as Nick gave off a very distant hands off vibe. I can’t imagine anyone feeling his hosting approach is 5 stars.
The positives of this condo are it’s proximity to the beach and it’s stylish furnishings and finishes. However, the space is rather small and pretty cramped.
We continued to feel uncomfortable with this undesirable situation and decided to check out early. The last thing we wanted was to have a confrontation with our host next door, so we explained our situation to Airbnb the day we left. They were tremendously helpful and felt that all of this should have been disclosed to us and that our discomfort was understandable. We did get a refund of the remaining days of our stay, so that was a fair resolution to a very uncomfortable situation.
Had we known this to be the case we would have chosen a different property. If having the host live in the attached unit and sharing the common space with his loose dogs is how you want to enjoy your vacation, then that’s your choice. We didn’t expect nor appreciate that or the evasive and dismissive treatment we got from the host.
We encourage the hosts to make some changes that may make others feel more comfortable or at least to disclose the situation more fully.