It’s pretty clear our experience at the house was an outlier. The majority of reviews were stellar, which is why we chose it for a week on Big Island. However, it started really badly.
Both hosts were off island for the holiday (New Year), so there wasn’t a person there who could fix issues. When we arrived on New Years Day, Ginger had messaged me to say they accepted a last minute booking and they hadn’t yet heard from the cleaning person. So we arrived to a house with dirty linens (and the clean ones they directed us too weren’t enough to make both beds). There was also no running water, as the catchment system was drained by the previous tenants. Ginger and Patrick were incredibly responsive and apologetic throughout the whole time, but it was clearly a challenge for them to fully address the issues with them not being there.
The catchment was refilled the next day, but my friend and I had to prime the system, as no plumber came. The cleaning person came on day three, but very little cleaning was done and the sheets weren’t changed. We had to make a second request and they sent a friend to do it on day four - and they did a great job.
There was initially no way to lock the house from the outside, as the property relied on a locked gate for security. On day two, we went to a night market (Uncle Robert’s - highly recommended!) and the next morning my friend realized his cash that was left at the house was missing. We felt a bit unsafe after that, and contacted AirBnB, but that outreach appears to still be pending a week later. We requested keys, but with them off island, they weren’t able to tell us where to find any. We finally found a key to the backdoor by day six, and felt MUCH better and safer re: the space. We never saw many neighbors, but we did hear some pretty nasty arguments from the house behind us and just felt the neighborhood had a strong “mind your own business” vibe.
The house has great potential, and will be awesome once it’s completed. I’m sure there wouldn’t have been the issues we had if Ginger or Patrick were close by.
Pahoa and the Puna district are really special. It’s an area not to be missed on Big Island.