After reading this, check Mark’s review from July 2021 too.
You’ll see that the issues I had with James’s place are not new.
We stayed in James’s place from Dec 20 to Dec 27 of 2021 (7 nights). There is no hairdryer even though the description says there is one. Most importantly, the apartment is not equipped to host 4 people. This is bad.
1. There are only two towels, and
2. The sofa bed is leaky; thus, you cannot use the sofa bed. We were four people and had to use the top of the bedroom’s mattress on the springs of the deflated sofa bed. That was the only way our daughters could have some sleep. You can imagine that we could not sleep comfortably on a hard mattress with no top, so we all had to endure bad sleep for 7 nights.
Without us asking, James refunded $50 to compensate for the lack of towels and the hairdryer.
Things started going south after I asked about the hairdryer, he replied offering a full refund if I didn’t like the place and complained that he was away with his family. Obviously, he didn’t want to be bothered. I declined the refund as I just wanted some help finding what we needed and were supposed to have.
Anyway, he also offered to send his maintenance guy (John) to check on the sofa bed mattress. John came the next day but could not fix the mattress because (and these are his words) … “we have tried before, and know we need a bicycle kit to patch the holes in it”).
To me this is a major issue and speaks volumes about terrible complacency and a lack of respect toward your guests. I booked this place since JUNE (6 months in advance). Obviously, we were going to need 4 towels and a fully functional sofa bed. Nobody cared enough to fix it, knowing it needed to be fixed for upcoming guests (check Mark’s review from July 2021 and you’ll see the issues with the towels and sofa bed are LONG-STANDING problems).
After we left, I asked James for a refund of 50% of the nightly fee. About $300 total. He never disputed the fact that the apartment is not equipped to host 4 people. This is false advertising or at least misrepresentation. He declined and offered just $100 but only if I wouldn’t post a negative review (that’s not exactly owning up to the mistakes made). If you are reading this, you know what happened. I had to go directly to Airbnb to complain and get my money back.
I hope that much needed upgrades are made so future guests have a better time than we did. The place has potential. Reading old reviews, you get the sense that maybe the property had better days and now it has decayed or suffers from lack of attention to detail.
There were some positives too (that’s why I’m giving it two stars). The apartment is in a prime location, and it was very convenient to be able to drive very short time to basically everywhere we wanted to go. In general, James was mostly cordial, prompt to answer, and seemed to try to help. He got us a parking permit so we could park our car outside not having to worry about parking tickets. By the way, you can park legally and for free overnight. Parking restrictions (2h of free parking) only apply from about 9 am to 6 pm (Mon-Fri); so, if you are going to be driving in DC during the day, you actually don’t need the permit.