This was an interesting experience. For the most part the house was as advertised. Overall the house was fine and I would consider staying there again but only for 1-2 weeks max. Because we were at the house for 2 months (in transition while moving here) I had the unique experience of using almost everything and discovering the quirks.
TL:DR
A simple cleanup of outside, a few fixes and some added communication from the host would give this place two more stars.
Detailed version:
You can tell this has been turned into a short-term rental and is managed by Ari and he has never lived in the home. It seems it was a short term and he is trying to lean towards longer term stays. The biggest complaint I have is lack of communication from the host. A lot of these issues could have been fixed by simple communication or a house manual explaining a few things.
First of all the location is very far away from most things and very very very quiet. This is a newer area and the only things are strip malls and chain restaurants. If you want the Vegas experience this is not it. (Which was great for us… we did not want to be on the strip which is about 20 mins.)
Inside:
The layout of the home is lovely and the furniture is nice for the most part. The design is nice and true to the photos. The kitchen is equipped for cooking and has nice appliances. The washer/dryer are great.
The master bed does have a noticeable slope/sag in the middle. Also there are no curtains and only overhead lights so if you want to sleep in/have dim lighting bring a sleep mask and a lamp. The thermostats are “smart” and are dual units up/down. What this meant was we spent 3-4 times a day going to the thermostat to adjust as it allowed the room to get 3 degrees hotter than the set temp. We both had barely one bar of cell service at best (Verizon) and the internet worked ok but wasn’t very fast and was spotty (restarting the router at least once a week). This made outside communication more challenging than expected.
There are no fixtures on the walls in the master bath (for towels, toilet paper) and the shower has two temps - really hot and hotter. Luckily there is a beautiful tub with a removable shower head that worked great, and the other shower was fine.
The dishwasher doesn’t work every 5th time. It also doesn’t work if you turn the sink on after starting the dishwasher. It also doesn’t clean very well - we had to run things through multiple times. Speaking of cleaning although the house was very clean when we checked in, there are zero cleaning supplies or tools in this house other than a broom. Not even a toilet brush. It was almost impossible to keep clean without spending my own money to buy tools to do so (like the vacuum I had to buy).
Garage/outside:
There is a very strict no parking on the street rule. The host is very concerned about this and the next door neighbor uses the spot in front of the house. So basically the rule is garage or driveway. It is a very tight fit to get two full sized cars in the driveway side by side. This wouldn’t be an issue except there is a bunch of stuff down both sides of the garage (couch, tile, cement, etc.) basically forcing you to park in the middle of the garage with another car in the driveway (hopefully) with enough room to get around. We were constantly moving around cars and we only had two.
Backyard/pool:
There is a serious fly problem. We got an electric zapper and citronella candles and still had 5-10 flies ON us at any given time. We did not eat or keep food outside, especially bc of this. I’m almost positive they are coming from next door (which is a mess) but regardless the yard needs to be sprayed.
There is a slatted deck that was built about 1/3 inch off the ground that is exactly the right width to drop headphones into or all other sorts of tiny things and it is impossible to get them out without tweezers. Also lizards and mice seem to go under there to die, which drove my dog crazy. In short there is a deck that serves zero purpose that actually makes things worse.
There are two very loud yapping dogs that fight in the yard next door and there is construction (jackhammering) in the house behind. Because the yard is only what you see in the picture (no bigger than the pool) the noise can get irritating. There was a bunch of broken tile in the side of the yard as well.
A large part of the reason we booked the house was the pool/spa. The host literally showed me how to turn it on and nothing else about it. There are lights in both that come on automatically each evening. The first 10 days I kept turning off the light which resulted in a very dirty pool making it hard to use either. Once we figured out the light was keeping the algae at bay and left it on each night the pool stayed clean. But then the pump died halfway into our stay and it took a week to fix. Once that was working the spa never did get hot again for the rest of the time. So overall pool/spa usage was very inconsistent due to it not working.
Lack of communication:
There was no consistent day or time for the pool service or the landscaping. They would show up with zero warning at different days/times. Again not great with a dog.
The host came to the house twice with zero communication before, during or after. Once to drill a light off the