The place is centrally located. However, the long story short is that we were locked out of the place because the electronic keypad batteries died. The host was unreachable because she sends unrecognized phone numbers straight to her voicemail. The host was generally unapologetic and said that this sometimes happens. The longer version of this story is below:
Our stay was disrupted due to an incident that the host did not handle very well. In the middle of our stay, we got back to the place around 8:30PM, only to find that the electronic keypad that we relied on to get into the place had its batteries die. Because the keypad had died we had no way to get back into the place. We immediately called the host – it went straight to voicemail. We called again and left a voicemail letting her know that we were locked out due to the keypad being dead. Since our calls to the host were going straight to voicemail (occasionally it would ring once then go to voicemail), we feared that the host had a work line or something as her contact number. We also left a message in the Airbnb portal at 8:36PM and let her know that we were locked out (and followed up with messages in the portal at 9:19PM and 10:03PM).
We also reached out to Airbnb support, since we had no luck getting in contact with the host. Airbnb support was very helpful and stayed in touch with us but let us know that they were not able to get in touch with the host either. When it got close to 10pm and still no word from the host, Airbnb support let us know that we could book a hotel for the night. A little after 10pm, we booked a hotel to stay for the night. At 10:06PM, after checking into the hotel, the host finally called us back.
We explained again that we were locked out of the place, and that we had just checked into a hotel because we feared she was not going to respond that night. Her first response was defensive and she questioned “why didn’t you give me a call?” I let her know that we called her several times and it just went to voicemail (between my husband and myself we called 6 times and Airbnb tried to get in contact with her too. This is in addition to the portal messages we left her). She then said “oh that’s probably because my phone sends unrecognized numbers straight to voicemail”. She then continued to explain that the keypad batteries are changed on a schedule, but it “sometimes happens” that the batteries die sooner. She did not seem apologetic at all. What is even more confusing is that it sounds like the batteries for the keypad lock “sometimes die earlier” and she still sends unrecognized numbers to voicemail, which all of her guests are likely unrecognized numbers. So, just know that if it happens to you, you might be locked out at an inconvenient time and unable to reach the host.
We were finally able to back into the place after 10:30PM. We were able to get back into the house, because she gave us the code for a lockbox that was outside the house. She apologized via the portal and again excused the inconvenience due to the batteries sometimes “running out more quickly”.
We thought this was all behind us, but the next day she asked us via the portal if we had booked a hotel. Again, I told her that we booked a hotel after we had not heard from her and checked in after 10pm, thinking we would have to stay there for the night. The Airbnb support person that was helping us during our lockout time was pinging us, implying that we were getting push back from our host. All in all, it seemed that our host was generally unapologetic that we were locked out the place and questioned why we would book a hotel at 10pm (after we called her 6 times with no response, and left 3 messages in the portal). She made it seem like this occasionally happens that the battery runs out of the keypad (the only way into the place), and she will send your calls to voicemail. If the host had handled the situation more appropriately, our review would be very different.