My wife, daughter, & cat needed a short-term rental to stay in Providence between the end of a prior lease and closing on a townhouse on the East Side of the city. We chose Danielle’s place in the Elmhurst neighborhood because it is a nice area of town – safe and walkable – and because it allowed pets. The house looked nice on paper, clean and newly renovated, but modest in size with three bedrooms & a single bathroom. The rental was a bit pricey (for Providence), at around $5,800 for 34 nights including taxes & fees. I mention the price only because it should influence the reader of this review’s evaluation of our expectations for quality and service. Unfortunately, Danielle’s place did not meet these (quite reasonable) expectations!
It’s hard for me to comprehensively enumerate all of the problems that we had with this rental unit, but I’ll try to do my best.
[1] There was no laundry. The AirBnB ad clearly indicated “coin-operated laundry in building” (this has since been changed), so after moving in and discovering that there was no laundry on the premises we naturally contacted the owner via the AirBnB messaging platform to ask what was going on. She “clarified” that what the ad meant to indicate was that they offered a one-time $25 coupon for a local wash & fold laundry service (which had a minimum order of $35). Keep in mind, we had rented the unit (with a school-aged child) for nearly 5 weeks! Obviously, I’m aware that an urban area in the U.S. has paid wash & fold laundry services – this is in no way equivalent to coin operated “on-site laundry” as indicated in the ad. Since we have family that live about 45 minutes away, and no other options (at this point) for places to stay, we decided to not make a bigger issue of the lack of laundry. If that had been our only problem….
[2] There was no air conditioning on arrival. The ad indicated A/C and we arrived for the hottest weekend of the year, to that point. Danielle contacted us in advance of our arrival to say that maintenance would come to install window A/C units between 11am and 3pm on the Saturday after our Friday check-in. Diligently, we made sure that we were home from 11am and waited… and waited. Maintenance finally arrived around 6pm, by which point we were already packing up the car so that my wife & daughter could go to her family’s house in MA (for other reasons, as documented in the next comment). When maintenance arrived, they arrived without air conditioning units, at which time they measured the windows and went to Home Depot to buy them! This meant that the A/C units were installed first, that evening, and then the next morning (on Sunday). Obviously, I had to wait around all day & evening, and be home the following day while this (and other required work, see below) was being completed. Since this was a known issue (Danielle mentioned A/C was to be installed, so she knew it wasn’t in place), why it couldn’t have been resolved before our arrival is a mystery to me.
[3] There was no hot water on arrival. After an ice cold shower, when I inspected the on-demand, gas hot water heater in the basement, we discovered that it was not connected to the natural gas utility at all – meaning that it had not been working for some time. Indeed, the gas line had been cut and capped. (A friend with experience in this area hypothesized this had been done by the utility company because the boiler had been improperly installed and was not venting correctly, but this is just a theory.) After considerable communication with the host, it was agreed that maintenance would also address boiler the following day. After discovering that it was inoperable and could not be repaired (because the gas line to the boiler had been cut & capped), maintenance bought an electric boiler and installed it. This required work on the electrical panel. (Although I feel confident that the maintenance guy was not a licensed electrician, since we had no place else to stay, I dared not ask!) Without hot water my wife & daughter sought out alternate accommodation until this was resolved – which it was, by Sunday afternoon.
[4] On Saturday, while waiting (all day, remember) for maintenance to arrive to install A/C and fix or replace the boiler, my wife decided to test out the dishwasher. She first discovered that, because it had been installed kitty-corner with the oven, it could not be opened without first fully opening the oven door! Then, we she tried to run it, water started leaking out and pouring all over the kitchen floor! Maintenance later discovered that the dishwasher had a large dent (and hole, obviously) on the side and could not be repaired. Danielle ordered a new dishwasher to be delivered on Thursday, but that was actually delivered on Friday. (Remember, we had to be around the house to receive delivery, too, so that meant that we had to build our schedules around these deliveries & repairs.) After delivery, no one was available to install the dishwasher until the following Tuesday – more than a week and a half after our original arrival. (I actually ended up helping the maintenance guy, a different person from the pair that installed the air conditioners and hot water heater, put in the new unit and move the old one to the backyard! He was very nice, so I didn't mind.) The replacement dishwasher, though usable, was much smaller than the prior one and since it was not bracketed to the wall would fall forward whenever opened! (At one point the dishwasher did this and the lower basket escaped and rolled freely across the kitchen floor! Luckily, no cups or dishes were broken, so this just provided a little comic relief.)
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