Firstly, the positives. The house is a great period building in a good location within walking distance of the French Quarter. It has been sensitively renovated by Isaac who clearly knows what he is doing in real estate development.

However, given repeated mentions of his "near perfect reviews" as a first line of defense to any issues raised, we came away feeling he is not as well versed in dealing with customers who are not perfectly satisfied. Our issues were;

Cleanliness - despite 4 hours between previous guests' check out and our check in time, the house was not as clean as expected with a badly stained comforter, dirty sheets on the living room twin, dirty plates & cutlery and dust and cobwebs in some corners.

While some dust is to be expected in an old house and we appreciated that the maid came over with new sheets and removed the stained comforter cover, the latter was never replaced with a fresh cover.

Infrastructure, Care & Repair - the house is popular and obviously has regular large groups of guests but we left feeling some of the infrastructure and maintenance was not keeping up with the wear & tear that many guest inevitably result in. Twin air mattresses were left in the house without a pump and, once delivered, one of them had a leak so would not inflate. 3 days in, we realized that many of us had endured lukewarm / cold showers as there simply was not enough hot water for 5 adults plus 3 kids with tank capacity clearly too low. Finally, the couch was in poor condition had several (cigarette burn?) holes in it.

We are not perfect guests, to be sure. Tired and faced with dirty sheets/comforter after long journeys and a child who had to sleep on the damaged couch due to lack of air pump, one of us called Isaac and vented their frustration at the situation. This was later followed with a calmer and more constructive list of issues, but, despite an initially apologetic and helpful reaction, Isaac soon became frustrated, consistently doubting the lack of cleanliness due to his previous good reviews and, defensively, putting the onus on his guests to come up with a solution.

Being told by a host that anything "puts the matter out of my hands and forces me to view the situation as a complete loss and not want to try and fix it" followed by the option of "you leave me horrible feedback, I leave you horrible feedback, and I give up trying to fix the situation" do not leave a good taste and we gave up trying to communicate any further.

So, while fully expecting the threatened negative review in return, I hope Isaac will reflect that this is not personal and a little more care, attention to detail and non-defensive attitude will maintain his ratings on airbnb much more effectively in the future.