The good: Issas place is in a good location in town. It has a pretty stream out back and I liked the regular security in the area. The place itself is laid out nicely.
The bad: COCKROACHES. Yes, cockroaches are a part of life in Hawaii. Having 1 or 2 is not the end of the world. Within several days of my stay, I was killing 10+ per day, while taking out my trash daily, cleaning the kitchen daily, and sweeping every few days. No vacuum was available. I like to cook and was staying in this place for 3 weeks (before I had to cancel early bc of this problem) so I think that me being pretty active in the kitchen and sometimes eating at the table (before I started eating anything and everything strictly on the lanai) likely attracted the roaches more than your typical vacation guest who stays for a week and mostly eats out. I also noted some food in the cabinets left from prior guests, in general this is a show of support from prior guests to share what they’ve bought with the next guest. In this situation, I believe it attracted the roaches, since I saw quite a few very small (likely new nymphs) crawling through this cabinet. Additionally, the pullout bed had crumbs on it and at least 2 large cockroaches on it when I opened the couch for a guest. When I complained about this problem, I received a lot of sympathy and one big case of bug spray. Issa would have let me cancel earlier but I tried to spray the spray and clean extensively and kill as many by hand as I could and buy my own traps and make it work. Every time I sprayed, the apartment stunk like raid and I couldn’t ventilate it unless I opened the glass door to the outside, which potentially invited more bugs (per wonder, screen door was stolen, expensive and needed to be custom made to replace). I finally did get fed up 2.5 weeks into the contact, and then had to spend a lot of time and money on trying to prevent them from coming with me to my next place in Hawaii. Despite really valiant efforts, they nested in a suitcase of mine (owned it for 10 years and have NEVER had a problem with roaches in it before I came to this apartment) which then moved them into my rental car several hours after I out the suitcase in there (never saw them in my rental car before this). I should have listened to my instincts and moved out after seeing more than a couple roaches.
I wish the owner Aloha, and I hope he can work with management to figure this out. I think the building is likely infested, and it’s not this apartment in particular or this owner specifically who is causing this. The place was nice if not for the roaches and I’m disappointed it didn’t work out, fearful that Air BnB didn’t protect me in this situation (any further refund was up to owner, so I received back about 20% of my total cost, which doesn’t cover total roach expenses), and worse, fearful and upset at the possibility of lasting ramifications for my efforts to try to compromise and make it work in this situation.