I visited New Orleans during part of Mardi Gras, and had to rent two separate places due to the busy season. I switched to Malvern’s apartment on Saturday, and I knew the Mardi Gras traffic and parades might make it difficult to reach the apartment, as my sister (who lives in the same part of the city) had informed me that driving there from the other location would be tricky, and good luck finding parking close by. I followed the protocol set out by the owner, stating that if a guest could not arrive during regular business hours, to contact him to set up other arrangements. I asked Malvern if it might be possible to check in early to avoid the parade traffic, and he said he couldn’t say, because of other people checking out, but that I could come by early and see if the keys were available. Fine. Not a problem. I replied that I would try to come by early, but that if I could not, I would wait til after the parades were over, since that would avoid the hassle. He in no way indicated that this would be a problem. Due to one thing and another, I didn’t make it to the apartment early, and decided to wait til evening when the parades were over. I messaged Malvern to let him know this. When I arrived around 10pm, the gate was locked, and Malvern did not reply to messages or phone calls. I was fortunate that one of my children is both old enough and small enough for me to hoist over the fence to look for the house keys, which I could only hope had been left in the location indicated by Malvern in an earlier message. They were, and we got in.
So many things could have gone wrong (I would not have been able to climb the fence myself, and what if someone had called the police?—just to name two). Beyond that, it was just a ridiculous, avoidable situation. I had believed, due to the statement on his page that the apartment has self-check-in, that arrangements would be made (per Airbnb rules!) for me to get the keys another way when I stated that it would be a problem to arrive during business hours. If that was not possible due to the busy weekend, then he should have said so, and I would have worked something out to arrive before 5. Since he did not indicate that it would be a problem to arrive after 5, even though I asked in two separate messages, I rationally concluded that he would either leave the gate unlocked for me or, that if I called him on arrival, he or someone else would be able to let me in. If 10pm was too late to receive calls (not excessively late, IMO), he should have stated that he is only available between specific hours of the day—but again, he did not. Additionally, during this whole process, I had difficulty getting *any* response from him, despite messaging him about the issue well over 24 hours in advance (usually several hour lapses before messaging me back, and on more than one occasion only messaged me back after I sent duplicate messages).
Such issues are generally resolvable by a sincere apology, a face to face meeting, an offer of a small refund, etc. Instead I received a "I’m sorry for your inconvenience”, which is not an apology, especially when followed by an attempt to blame the issues on Mardi Gras! I fail to see any connection between the difficulty I had reaching his place (which was entirely to be expected), and his seeming inability to answer my questions. He never followed up to see how my stay went, or responded to my statements that I was unhappy with his poor communication.
The apartment itself was great, apart from being slightly creepy to enter at night (it’s upstairs inside a law office). I am hardly new to Airbnb rentals, and this was an extremely disappointing experience compared to previous ones.