We stayed for 14 days because my partner had to have several surgical procedures. She was in bed recovering for most of that time.
The good:
The Airbnb was clean, the appliances were new, the neighborhood was beautiful and in a good location. The host responded relatively quickly while we were there.
The bad:
This was not worth the money we paid. If we were staying for a day or two we would have rated it much higher, but we had a 14 day stay. We would have cancelled and found a different place to stay but could not because of my partner’s procedures.
* The listing advertises an office chair, but there was no office chair there. We only realized the listing included it upon leaving, so we did not have a chance to ask the host to bring one down for us while we were there. The host still has not acknowledged why the chair wasn’t there even though it was advertised as including it. I worked from the Airbnb most of the 14 days and my back still hurts, two weeks later.
* The Airbnb is below the living room of the home (apparently not far from the kitchen/dining area) so it was not particularly quiet. They tend to stay up late and get up early.
The host apologized for her college son and his friend partying above us the first night. We asked her to keep it quiet after 10pm. She said she was out of town and assured us this would not happen again. But it would randomly get loud after 10pm. There is a piano and TV directly above the bed. Someone would randomly play piano above us, even around midnight. They would randomly watch TV and clean/bang around up there, which was very disruptive to my partner who was stuck in bed recovering from spinal procedures. The host later said they think their kids stay up past their bedtime when they’re away. This should not be the guest’s problem. We heard the mother/father arguing and yelling at their children. We heard the children repeatedly engaging a very loud Siri or Alexa, and the father keep yelling at them to stop. It was kind of like a sitcom, except less fun.
The next door neighbor had a construction project using heavy machinery on the side of their property closest to the Airbnb. We heard this nearly every weekday. The host should have warned us about this, and should have provided a discount for it but has not acknowledged it — they only acknowledged the piano and TV, though they said it was only 10 minutes of piano and a bit of TV, when in reality it was multiple nights of it.
We ended up running the heater with the windows open to try to drown out the noise, even though it was quite hot out. When running, the heater occasionally sounds like it’s going to pull itself off the wall, but that’s a different story.
* The listing advertises amenities like pots/pans, stove, etc. But all four of the pots/pans were extremely rusted and scratched, which is very dangerous for pots/pans with synthetic coatings like those — we don’t think Goodwill/Salvation Army would accept them in that condition. One of the four plates was cracked almost the whole way through. There was no glassware, just four tiny mugs. The water pressure in the shower was abysmal, which is very disappointing given that a previous reviewer from 6 months ago also complained about it. The host said this was due to the CA water restrictions and that they could ship a new shower head to another state, smuggle it back by hand, and have it installed 6 days later. We declined since we were under strict doctor’s orders to quarantine ourselves due to the severity of my partner’s spinal procedures. The shower also had more knobs and nozzles than any other shower I’ve encountered, so it was disappointing that we had to reach out to see if we were using it properly or if it was just broken. Instructions would have been nice. Several of the towels had stains as well.
The host was responsive while we were there and provided us with things we asked for. But we should not have to ask for usable pots/pans. We should not have to ask for peace and quiet. We should not have to ask for an office chair that is advertised in the pictures and text description of the listing. We should not have to ask for glassware. We did not want to immediately begin our 14 day stay with complaints, and then have to complain every day from that point on. That is not what we expect from Airbnb. We use Airbnb frequently and have never had anything less than a perfect stay. This was the worst experience we have had. We even had to remind them to be quiet at 10:25pm our last night because the TV was blaring above us.
To make matters worse, the host stopped responding to us 6 days ago. They repeatedly tried to minimize our complaints, said they were normally quiet, and asked us to give them 5 stars in spite of our experience. We don’t think that’s fair given the fact that we spent over $3k on this listing and didn’t even get what was advertised. They offered a $300 refund specifically for one instance of piano playing, which we don’t think is enough given the circumstances and the fact that they’re not taking any of our other complaints into account. This is what they said, verbatim: "The $300 is for the night with the 10mins piano that my son didn't aware of the time and I wasn't even home."
At this point we don’t even know that we’ll get $300 back since they refuse to respond.