Michelle has a beautiful, cozy, older home with an amazing outdoor area. The house is very large and can sleep up to ten, which was great for our group. The pool and gardens were a perfect place to relax outside and the house was located on a nice quiet street. Plus, the large front porch was a great spot to enjoy the rainy days of our trip. The location was in good proximity to Audubon park, the streetcar line, Tulane/Loyola, and lots of great restaurants on Carrollton, Maple, and Oak. The house was very well equipped with towels, toiletries, snacks, and kitchenware. There were ample beds, fun decor, a great kitchen, OnDemand TV, a good game selection, laundry detergent, and a washer & dryer. There were also fans in every bedroom and the AC worked well, which is key for New Orleans in July. As a heads-up to any potential guests with allergies, given that this is an older home in muggy New Orleans, there was a mildew scent in the house.
Unfortunately the wifi wasn’t great during our stay and it only seemed to work in the kitchen area, which was a bit of an issue because most of our group had to work remotely during the trip. When we mentioned the wifi issues to Michelle, it took a while for her to get the problem fixed, and even once it was “fixed” we still weren’t able to get a reliable connection anywhere except the kitchen area. So, if you need to work remotely during your stay, prepare for a less than ideal internet connection.
Additionally, although the space was advertised as a private entire home, Michelle’s sister was staying in the other half of the house. We were not given notice that we would be sharing the property with someone else until after we had booked our stay. Further, upon arrival, we found that the “guest house” (where her sister was staying) was actually just an extension of the main home. The “guest house” has windows that overlook the pool and we could occasionally hear someone watching TV through the laundry room wall (there was a door off the laundry room/kitchen that connected the main house to the guest house). For those reasons, we felt that there was a lack of privacy at Michelle’s.
One of the main reasons we felt comfortable booking Michelle’s house during COVID was that she assured us there was a 48-hour buffer between guest stays. Unfortunately we found out that was not true given that Michelle messaged us on our last night to let us know we had to be out of the house promptly at 11am because she had new guests checking in at 4pm that day. Lastly, the cleaning crew showed up around 10:20 (with no masks on) and made us feel rushed to leave before our checkout time.
Overall we had a great time during our stay and the pool area was exactly what we were looking for. Had we not been misled regarding privacy and the COVID precautions, we would have rated this 4 stars.