I did not have a great stay at this property. I almost never leave unfavorable reviews and hate doing it. But not every place should be an Airbnb and I think this is one of them.
The ceilings are very low and the unit is a tiny basement studio, so it felt claustrophobic. I’m 6’ 1” and could not stand upright in the shower without my head touching the shower ceiling.
Being below grade, all wastewater (kitchen and bathroom sinks, toilet, shower) has to be pumped up to drain. So there is an electric pump that loudly pulses whenever you use water.
The place is near the end of a dead-end street where parking is extremely tight. The owners ask you not to use the public street parking in front of the house, apparently reserving that for themselves. The neighborhood appears to be undergoing aggressive gentrification, and some of the residents weren’t wild about having short-term rentals there.
The owner, who apparently lives on site upstairs, uses a property manager and asks not to be “disturbed” by the guests. Unfortunately, it’s tough not to be disturbed by most any general activity upstairs. Any footsteps thump and resonate loudly in the basement, and some plumbing feature above (maybe a toilet flushing) creates a thunderous rumble right over the bed. Thunderous flushes happened as early as 5 a.m. during my stay, making it impossible to sleep in.
The house check-in instructions and lists of caveats and dos and dont’s that arrived by message just before check-in were more than 750 words long. The 11-point check-out guide posted on the fridge took up an entire page. And there are little laminated signs all around the apartment telling you what not to do, annotated with a smiley face. Despite all that, if you’re arriving after dark, you may have a real tough time finding a well-lit house number to verify the street address. Never fun taking a chance in the dark and walking into a property hoping that you have the “right place.”
There were some positives: a well-equipped kitchen, decent decor, very clean — but the listing doesn’t mention any of the negatives. If it had noted, for instance, that if you’re over 6 feet tall you can’t stand up in the shower, I would have rented elsewhere.
None of these things can be remedied by bringing them up with the owner (especially since you’d first have to go through the property manager), which is why I say not every place should be an Airbnb. So, based on the relatively high price for the rental, the photos and listings that I don’t think honestly conveyed the property and the structural elements that make it an undesirable place to stay, I don’t recommend this property.