I had a terrible experience with this host, and would not recommend staying with them. TL;DR: Sonder’s logistical oversight put us in a dangerous situation, and left us with no way to contact them.
I booked this particular place in the Bywater neighborhood to be away from the hustle and noise of the more touristy parts of town. However, the day before I was supposed to check-in Sonder changed my reservation because this unit had maintenance issues, and work was scheduled to be done on the unit. I do not know why it was listed as available when the unit had pre-planned maintenance. They changed the reservation to a unit on Esplanade Avenue, between the French Quarter and Frenchman street—one of the loudest parts of town. We decided to go ahead with the stay, because we could not find another affordable option so last minute. My request for a refund was denied.
If you are not familiar with Sonder, their units are set up like hotels or apartment buildings. There are multiple units in a single building, and there is a door code everyone uses to get in. The door to this new listing was not secure, and the last night of our stay someone entered the premises and attempted to break in to our unit and others in the building. He banged violently on our door, demanding that we open it and made death threats. He had a gun and fired a round through the window of the unit next to us.
We called 911 and the police eventually arrived, but Sonder has no emergency line. There is no security, and there is no way to contact anyone who works for Sonder locally. When you call with any kind of issue you are connected to a call center overseas, whose operators then contact someone onsite to help with the issue. While this business model might be fine for concierge services and asking for extra towels, there is no direct way to contact an onsite manager if there is an emergency, or if an urgent or unsafe situation occurs. There is no security guard onsite, or any safety measures taken. I would also like to note there is no peephole in the door to see who might be knocking.
The next day we requested a later than usual checkout because of the incident, which we were denied.
While the attempted break-in was not Sonder’s fault, they created the conditions that allowed this to happen. They do not take safety into account nor is there any recourse should issues arise.