TL;DR, Cristian and Mariana's place is generally clean, spacious, and comfortable, however they knowingly let us book for days that had no water during the night and no hot water during the day. We also had no water in the kitchen or bathtub for our entire 7-day stay. And while they were responsive to our messages, they did nothing to help mitigate or address our issues. The lack of a basic amenity such as water significantly impacted our vacation that we had been planning for months.

We booked Cristian and Mariana's place three weeks in advance. However, just two days before our check-in the hosts informed us that there will be no water from 11 PM to 6 AM due to a water main repair project in the complex for 4 out of the 7 days of our stay. We voiced our concerns but had to proceed since this was an extremely late notice giving us no opportunity to cancel or get a refund or look for alternate accommodation.

Unfortunately, right on the first day of our stay we found that the real situation was much worse. Apart from no water at night, there was no hot water throughout the day. The kitchen faucet and the bathtub faucet were also bad and had an extremely low volume of water (just a small trickle).

Not having a basic amenity such as water made our stay extremely challenging to say the least, especially since we were travelling with young children. No water at night meant we could not go to the restroom or clean up at night. No hot water throughout the day meant we had to take cold showers. We have dietary restrictions due to health issues but almost no water in the kitchen meant cooking and cleaning was painfully inconvenient and slow. Apart from the impact on our staying and living conditions, these water issues delayed us from getting out of the house each day.

We let the hosts know about these issues on the first day and with repeated messages throughout our 7-day stay. We even volunteered to send videos to help them understand and empathize with what we were going through. While they were responsive, they kept deflecting the blame on the water main repair project and did nothing to help us. We thought about leaving for a different place, but it was extremely hard to find another at short notice.

Only on the last day of our 7-day stay plumbers from the condominium complex came by and confirmed that the problem was with the faucets inside the home and that they need to be replaced and there was nothing they could do about it since they don’t handle issues inside the home.

During our stay, we also learned that the HOA had emailed all condominium owners well in advance about this big water repair project. We also saw notices posted everywhere and various personnel we spoke to at the condominium complex confirmed that all homeowners were notified well in advance. We also now know that hosts own multiple units at the complex. This means that the hosts knew about the water repair project when we had booked their place but chose to hide it from us until it was extremely late.

Apart from the water issues, roaches in the kitchen were another problem. We ensured that the kitchen counters and floors were all clean and free of any food crumbs or items and yet every day we came back to find roaches roaming around or dead on the kitchen platform, sink or around the dishwasher. We did not complain about this to the hosts initially since getting the water issues resolved was our top priority.

Having spent 4 out of 7 days without water at night and hot water throughout the day and 7 out of 7 days without water in the kitchen and bathtub we requested a reasonable refund from the hosts. After asking multiple times the hosts agreed to one but it was much smaller in comparison to the misery they put us through.

There were additional problems we faced but we understand that these maybe beyond the host’s control. Putting them here for completeness.
- A false fire alarm in the middle of the night at 4:30 am due to construction/cleaning in the complex. We have no idea why the complex decided to do this cleaning/construction in the middle of the night. Unfortunately, it happened on the same day that the hosts told us there would be a fire drill, adding to our confusion.
- Construction noises at night.
- Trees right outside the bedrooms sometimes have birds chirping extremely loudly at night.

Here are some things we appreciated. The home was spacious and clean with one exception (as mentioned above). The bed and furniture were very comfortable. Kitchen utensils and dinnerware were well stocked. Bathrooms were clean. Having multiple TVs was great. Hosts were responsive and replied to our messages even in the middle of the night.

Unfortunately, the constant lack of water throughout our stay and nothing done to address it tilted our experience towards the extreme negative side. We see that Cristian and Mariana generally have positive reviews for all their places and so we hope that this was a one-off situation that they learn from.