This trip was ab absolute nightmare. It started out so well but then went in a downward spiral.
Pre Arrival :
Pre-arrival was great. We booked the place on Airbnb and had communication with the host on a regular basis. We were a family of ten attending my sister's wedding in San Francisco and everyone was excited to be together after a long time. Gene was helpful on the messages and responded on time and it all looked great. We were arriving in batches so my parents who reached first checked in and then the rest of the family arrived later.
On Arrival:
On the day of the arrival we were told by the host that there would be a delay in check-in as the previous guests had made a mess in the house and that check-in would be delayed by a few hours till the staff cleaned the house. We agreed to this. Once we got notification that we could check in we we went to the property. First impression of the area was not great. Felt like a poorer part of San Fran and we felt like we had been transported into the 1980s. The house itself however was the nicest one on the street and felt like it had been kept well (from the outside at least). We were given a key code which we used to enter the premises. The first thing we noticed however was that the garbage bins were overflowing with garbage on the porch. Had to message the host who said somebody would empty them the next day. Apparently garbage collection was two days down the line and we had to 'wait' for them to be empty. I would have expected the host to have at least emptied the garbage bins before we checked in given that we were travelling with a large party including children.
Inside the house:
The house was advertised as having six bedrooms. We it doesn't. There are four bedrooms on the first floor, and the dining area next to the kitchen has been 'converted' to a bedroom housing a bunk bed. Also the sixth room is actually an annex and quite separate from the rest of the house. There is one toilet upstairs and an en suite albeit so small that my head (1 am 6 feet tall) was above the shower head so quite unusable.
The most striking thing about the house was how dirty it was. There was dirt under the beds and the only two seater sofa in the living room. There were some extra chairs kept on one side but not really a lot of place to sit for such a big property. The sofa had a cover which felt like hadn't been washed in the last 10 years. There were three glasses for drinking water in the kitchen. The bed linen had been made but didn't seem that new linen had been put on. The main bathroom had mould in it.
A couple of days in the property and the kids started getting rashes on their body. My daughter who is 6 had severe bites on her face and arms and seemed like there were bed bugs in the bed she was sleeping on. My brother had severe breathing issues (he is asthmatic) and almost everyone in the household had hives and rashes on their arms or face. We contacted the owner who sent an individual to check for bed bugs. He looked at one bed for 10-15 mins and then left saying there was nothing wrong. He did give us some fresh linen.
Post Stay
We contacted AirBnb and told them that we could not stay like this and demanded a refund. After much back and forth (including pictorial evidence) we were given a 20% refund on our stay. This was supposed to be joyous occasion for us but turned into quite a nightmare because of the condition of the property.
To rub salt in our wounds, the host gave us a bill for nearly £500 citing cleanliness issues. Most of the items on their list were things that were wrong from day 1. A dirty fireplace which he asked 250 for cleaning when we were there in the middle of the summer and didn't even touch the darn thing. Also, they said we had misplaced the lock which was absolutely absurd given that the house entry was through a key code that they had given us.
Overall we did not expect a property where we paid around £700 a night to be in such condition. I would advise whoever reads this review to stay away from this listing. You will thank me later!