My opinion about the place is…
Positive comments
The location was great and exactly what I needed for the past week. It was close to I-35 and downtown Austin where my office is located. Grocery shops are 10 min drive. Communication with Host was good.
Areas for improvement include
The house needs some improvements for me to consider it a 4 or 5 star experience. Firstly, there were sugar ants all over in the inside of house. Harmless to humans but they were downstairs and upstairs. We found them especially active in the upstairs bathroom, the kitchen, and near the router in the upstairs bedroom. Kids found them in their beds but I think this was because the ants would attach to their clothes throughout the house and then fall into the sheets when the kids would sleep.
I did not call the Host about the ants because I didn’t want an exterminator spraying chemicals while we were staying at the house. We managed to live with the ants for the few days we were staying there. I informed the Host about the ants upon checkout so hopefully he can take further action.
The place just feels like an investment property instead of a home. There’s a real difference when Hosts invest into the place to ensure it is a great experience but IMO it was really lacking in this regard when compared to our stays elsewhere.
The neighbour’s rooster can be a noise nuisance. We’ve owned chickens and roosters for the past 2 years and understand the 4am cockle doodle doo is natural for these birds. You can’t shut them up even if you try. :) But there is something annoying when staying in the city and the birds are waking you up in the morning.
The upstairs back bedroom didn’t cool very well at night. We had several warm nights and turned down the AC to see if we could get the temperature down in the room but it still didn’t get cool enough to be comfortable. The downstairs was much cooler than the upstairs in the day and night. We really enjoyed the cool temperature during the day downstairs.