PROS:
- Sergio was extremely fast to respond to any message I sent
- They provided us with a parking permit for our rental vehicle, so we could park on the street right outside the AirBnB when parking was available
- The building itself is super nice, and has been decorated in a sort of classic eclectic way, which was interesting
- The location seems to be in a really good neighbourhood. There are lots of shops and restaurants around, and it's super easy to get into the city proper, or out into the suburbs. And the neighbours were friendly!
CONS:
- We weren't made aware that there was construction being done on the road the AirBnB is on, which meant that the entire street was blocked off on weekdays. This made finding a parking spot even more difficult that usual, and meant lugging our bags around when we first got there and were trying to find the place.
- The place has a definite drain fly/fruit fly problem. Obviously, it's summer and some amount of bug-ness is to be expected but this was a bit much.
- Water pressure in the shower is almost non-existent. In all fairness, we can't know if this is a Chicago thing or an AirBnB thing, but we never felt like we were getting properly clean, and I could never get the shampoo fully out of my hair. The removable part of the shower head was broken, and would spray water everywhere.
- The whole place was pretty significantly dusty. Both of our allergies went nuts when we were in the building, despite taking allergy medication. We only ate in the breakfast nook once and when we were wiping up after ourselves it became apparent it had not been properly cleaned for a while.
- We have our doubts that the room we stayed in was cleaned before we arrived, because there were some items clearly left behind by a previous guest.
NEUTRAL:
- Bed is very, very soft. If you like soft beds, awesome! If you need a firm mattress, not awesome.
- We weren't told the keycode ahead of time, and when I messaged about it when we got there, the keypad wasn't working. Sergio was out at the time, so we had to leave until he was available to let us in. Full disclosure, we had arranged to check-in early, so we weren't too upset by this as they were doing us a favour initially anyway. And once we were able to get in, we were able to use a physical key until the keypad was fixed.
- We weren't informed that there would be other people sharing the space (other than the bedroom) with us. While it certainly is their right not to tell us, we feel it would have been a courtesy to let us know just because we were all startled to discover each other. Also, our AirBnB-mates wouldn't lock the front door, which is something that made us feel unsafe (but that is not the AirBnB's fault)