I really wanted to love this place. I chose it based on the great reviews, the great location, and honestly it looked really cute in the pictures and I couldn't wait to see it in person. Once I got there, check in was fairly easy except the lock box was really hard to open and close, we spent a good 5-10 minutes trying to get the key out but that wasn't a huge deal.
Inside was very cute, we love tiny homes so we were excited to see what it was like living in one. The first night we noticed there was mold in the bathroom and we were kind of taken aback. It looked as though the bathroom had flooded at some point and the baseboard had started rotting. That's a little gross but I know repairs can be expensive so I thought maybe she hadn't gotten to it yet, I was ready to forgive one small imperfection in such a cute little place.
In the morning I was glad to see there was a tea kettle as we love tea and not everyone thinks to include one in their rentals. But I could see through the clear glass sides that there was rust all over the bottom of the inside and it was not safe to use. I was disappointed and frustrated that it hadn't been removed or replaced even though it was clearly unsafe. I wouldn't have given it a second thought if there was no tea kettle at all but to have one provided that is in such a poor state was a very disappointing experience.
Throughout the weekend we noticed some spiders dwelling in the corners of the bedroom/loft area, they were small and seemed harmless. We squished the few that got onto our bags and other things but we kept finding them all over our pillows and in our bed and we would wake up to them crawling on us. By the end of our two night stay we had squished over 20 spiders and there were still plenty of live ones on the walls, the ceiling, and windows. The place was very clearly infested and I honestly don't believe it was fit for renting. At this point I was starting to wonder if the host had even checked the upstairs before we came because there's no way I would have let someone stay in my house if I saw that many spiders and webs in their room.
When our check out day came we gathered our things and were heading out early to make the drive back home. We locked up the loft and headed towards the driveway to leave only to find that the gate had been locked from the outside and we had no way of opening it on our side. We had essentially been locked IN before the end of our reservation. We messaged our host and after a few minutes with no response we tried calling the number she provided and once again had no response. We waited a bit for a return call, when none came we tried knocking on the back door to the house (since there was a car in the driveway and sounds coming from the kitchen window we assumed someone was home) with no answer. I tried calling one more time and I was sent to voicemail after two rings. At this point we had been trying to leave for almost half an hour and were running low on time, since the host was nowhere to be found we were out of options and my husband had to climb over the fence, unlock the gate, and go back in for our things. We did not get a message back from the host until 4 hours later when we were long gone.
I was ready to shrug off the first few things that weren't quite perfect but after being attacked by spiders left and right and locked IN to the yard with no help from the host I had to come to terms with what a let down this stay was. I was very surprised, I expected at least an average stay from a host with so many good reviews but this stay wasn't good or even ok. It was down right bad. We've stayed with other, less popular Airbnb hosts before and had much better experiences.