Dear Julie,
Thanks for opening your beautiful home to us. It’s such a lovely space and so conveniently located. Thank you also for being quick to respond to us while we stayed with you. I did give you 5 stars for communication, location, cleanliness, and value.
Because of the beauty of your home and the convenience of its location, I’m tempted to leave a 5-star review. However, there are a few things I was uncomfortable with during our stay:
First and foremost, even though I was not present at the time you encountered my roommates, my black friend says you made him feel extremely uncomfortable... I can only hope this was a major miscommunication, but I trust my friend l and take him for his word. He says you gave him the cold shoulder, refused to shake his hand (after just shaking the hand of our other friend), and that you made him feel extremely uncomfortable and offended. He was very upset and downcast the rest of the day. As I said, I was not downstairs when this interaction occurred, but I feel I have to bring this to your attention as it is the reason we will not be returning to your home in the future, regardless of its beauty and location.
Secondly, I noticed you entered the space while we were away. I gathered you swept the terrace, but I feel this could have been done before our arrival and was simply an excuse to enter the space while we were away. Essentially it just made me feel like you were snooping around, taking a look at our things and how we were living in the space. It made me very uncomfortable and in my opinion it was not necessary for you to come upstairs in our absence.
Thirdly, on that same evening we had been out all day, we returned to your home to find you had put the thermostat at 85 degrees on heat... in the middle of June. It was boiling in the upstairs space! I had left the air off completely when we left that morning, so I don’t understand why you adjusted the thermostat at all in our absence. It was very uncomfortably hot and also really strange to me. I simply don’t understand your motive for it because first of all it’s the middle of summer so the heat should not be on at all, but second of all we are guests and we expect to be able to choose the temperature setting while we are paying to stay there. I brushed this off though, thinking it must be some kind of mistake or miscommunication. However, that same day I set the thermostat on 72 cool when I went to bed. I woke up the morning of our checkout and again it was unbearably hot in the house. When I went to check the thermostat it was set to 85 degrees heat again in the middle of June! Why on earth would you continue to turn the heater on while we were staying with you? It doesn’t make any sense to me.
Lastly, my final issue with the space was your intense cleaning requests at checkout. I have been booking with Airbnb for years and I always pay a cleaning fee - but never, ever have I been asked to clean the home myself as well as pay a cleaning fee. Now I don’t mind cleaning up after myself and I do understand it’s important to respect someone’s home. I clean up my trash and I make my bed and I leave the place looking nice and tidy. But for you to require us to strip the beds, take the trash to the alley, load the dish a washer, etc etc... it was all too much to ask while also charging a cleaning fee. It seems to me that you should either lower/remove your cleaning fee or else do not ask guests to tidy the space for you. If you are going to require folks who are on vacation to strip their own beds then you shouldn’t also charge them $60 for a cleaning fee.
I think that’s all we have to say about our stay. It really is a beautiful home with lots of character and in a perfect location. It was also a safe place for us to enjoy smoking (as we are tourists and we were looking for somewhere we could safely and easily enjoy legalization). However, despite all of the good qualities of your home, we won’t be recommending it or staying there again because of the reasons listen above. Thank you.