I have to be honest, the only reason we didn't give the place a 1-star is because the host was super understanding when we had to push our trip by two weeks and they agreed to reschedule the booking even though they only book for a one month minimum.
Everything else was downhill from there; we basically wanted to leave the unit the same day we arrived (because of the reasons I'll list below). We did leave as soon as we could when we found a more permanent place (we were moving to the island), but not without Airbnb's intervention to help us cut our stay short.
Our host was in a real hurry to request the extra $200 for the pet cleaning fee, even though our dog was still in quarantine. We received messages like "Just sent the request for the pet cleaning fee. Our manager let us know your dog made it safely." -- even though that wasn't true and our dog was still in quarantine at that time; we did make sure to pay the fee as soon as she was released and entered the unit.
While we can understand the worry about the cleanliness of the unit, there were things that we found as cumbersome and problematic and made our stay really unpleasant (for which we received very unhelpful responses or none at all):
- the screen door in the entrance door doesn’t close so there’s no way to leave the main door open for some much needed airflow during the hot days.
- despite what the photos show, the overhead lights in the living room don’t work, except for one. It’s not very well lit.
- the kitchen lacks basic supplies like a dish towel, oven mitt, dish soap (there was some, but they filled it mostly with water so there’s not much “soap” in it), the garbage bin lid was broken so it didn't close.
- the bathroom shower leaks, the sink is clogged (there seems to be hair? in it and had a gross old bandaid that I managed to take out, still took a very long time to drain), no hand towels.
- the (only) a/c unit, in the bedroom, which is a must during the hot summer nights, is so loud that it’s nearly impossible to sleep with it on. Once one manages to get kinda used to the noise, it sometimes stops (to “cool off” the motor probably), and when it starts again it does so with a very loud and alarming noise that wakes us up again.
- the power went off several times if we have the a/c on, together with some other stuff on (like with the kettle and the tv).
As for the host's response to our mentioning of the above, we received the following message "addressing" some of the issues:
"...As for the basics, it is mentioned in our listing that we only provide some things to start but the rest can be purchased at the market nearby. Since we do offer longer stays, we make it clear that we do not cover those essentials for the entire time. Particularly bc in the past, we’ve had many experiences with folks moving to the island and things from our unit have “disappeared”. For that reason, we ask that people disclose pets ahead of time as well as other details, so we can ensure who we are hosting. Typically, we do not accept reservations from folks that are not planning to return to the mainland..."
Not only it made it sound that we were going to steal stuff (soap and towels, really!?), the whole rationale of purchasing our own essentials (which is understandable if we needed to replace something that we ran out off) is ridiculous.