My stay at Krystalee’s place was for a business trip to work on the “medical frontlines” for 10 days. Mainly I wanted a place where I didn’t have a worry about anything additional while I was working but it did not turn out that way. My minimum requirements were a comfortable safe place to crash and reliable wi-fi (since it was a local work trip). While I think the host(s) had good intentions to start with, the cons did not make up for the pros for me on this one.
Here are some of the pros and cons for this stay.
The pros: the tiny house itself was nice, cute and good proximity to north shore.
The cons were due from a few different things…
Hot House: Night I arrived the house was like a sauna and the ‘upstairs’ windows were all closed, then there was a sign on the ladder for guests to stay off it. There were fans but it was mainly circulating hot air so I didn’t sleep well, despite all the first floor windows being wide open all night. Once the upper windows were opened by the hosts (the next night) the air circulation did improve. But it was a necessity to sleep with all the windows open every night to keep the temperature comfortable.
I’m accustomed to not having A/C since I’m local but not neighbors quite so close. As someone else mentioned in their review, noise carrying from the neighbors/dogs nearby can be heard and having to sleep with windows open, one night I had the experience of being woken up to the sound of someone vomiting around 2 am. If you’re a light sleeper, you'll probably want to have ear plugs on hand.
Wi-fi unreliable: Night I arrived the wi-fi wasn’t working at all. While the host re-set it the next day, when I needed to do a few different work meetings on Zoom the connection was intermittently unstable and keep restarting which made it difficult to participate in the meetings. If you're staying for a beach trip, probably wont matter much but for work reasons, might need to have a backup plan.
Major Ants: I actually wrote to Airbnb to find another place to stay but because I had an 80 hour workweek planned and really didn’t sleep the first night from the heat, then discovered the ants. Airbnb did not answer me in a timely fashion, so I ended up sticking it out. Every morning, the bathtub had loads of ants in it.
I let the host know (with photographs) and they added some more ant traps but it did not fix the problem and no further efforts were made. The bathtub drained too slowly to wash the ants down the tub, which I also let the host know (in email on the 2nd or 3rd day). So for my whole trip, every morning I had to wipe all the ants out of the bathtub, in order to use the shower without ants floating everywhere.
I actually stored all my food in the fridge so as to not attract any ants to the kitchen because they were so concentrated in the bathroom (right next to kitchen). They stayed perfectly happy in the bathroom. I’m accustomed to critters, being a Hawaii local, but feel much more could have been done with this situation. In every place I’ve stayed in past, its always been very easy with hosts & I’ve never felt like I needed to ask for anything more than once. Usually I feel hosts are very proactive in making sure a guest is comfortable and anything outstanding is taken care of. No guest wants to repeatedly ask for something to be fixed day after day or feel like they are inconveniencing anyone. My main focus was on getting through a busy workweek, so it came to the point where it seemed it was not important enough for host to do anything more to fix it or at least continue making attempts to do so, despite being made aware of the concerns. All that gave me the impression that my comfort was not a high priority sadly. Very disappointing to say the least.
Bathtub broken: Unable to use the tub for a bath because the tub would not hold water. It was suggested that maybe use of a rock and plastic would work, which I did not have nor would I want to take a rock from the yard because of the slugs around. Again, by this point (over halfway into my stay) it did not feel as if my comfort was a priority. While we are in a challenging time, I know this firsthand as a healthcare worker, I still feel when being paid for a service then the service should be the best you can provide. I wish I could say that I felt I received the best service. The owner and host, both were very nice people, but at the end of the day, I wish more efforts had been made. Just a few small changes would have gone a really long way. Hopefully by sharing this, it will be better for the next person.