Unfortunately, we would not book this property again. Below is a breakdown of our pros/cons with the experience:
Pros:
- Jen and Steven were super responsive to messages and very flexible when we needed to add another person to our reservation
- The location of this property is extremely convenient and a huge part of the draw (close to good coffee shops and restaurants, the Triangle, UT, and a not too expensive rideshare away from downtown Austin)
- Plenty of parking, which was super helpful
- We used the shared laundry facilities, which did the job, and downloading the app gave us enough free credit to actually cover the couple loads that we needed to do
- We did not use it, but the pool area looked really nice
Cons
- While the photos do capture the apartment pretty accurately, keep in mind that they’re shot in really good lighting and so it seemed a lot cleaner in the photos than in reality
- I think cleanliness standards vary person to person, but for me it missed the mark a bit
- The biggest issue, which contributes to my opinion on the cleanliness, was the German roaches. There were so many, at least 2 a day. There is a disclaimer deep in the listing about how there are naturally going to be some critters due to the Texas heat. When I reached out to Jen and Steven after killing 3 roaches in the first 12 hours of our stay, they pointed out that disclaimer to me and to their credit, they did offer to have pest control come by. I took them up on this offer, and it took a few days for the pest control guy to come by and spray. We stuck it out hoping that the bug issue would resolve itself or at least be more minimal, but honestly the spray didn’t seem to do anything for the second half of our week-long stay. In hindsight, I wish I would have tried to reach out to Airbnb support and find somewhere else to stay, but I believe you have 72 hours to report an issue upon discovery so we missed that window by trying to give the place a chance and not wanting to have to move all of our stuff to a new location. It’s not Jen and Steven’s fault - I understand that bugs are difficult to treat and are a bit out of your control. However, it’s an old complex and there were a lot more bugs than the listing disclaimer would lead you to believe. I’ve lived in Texas my entire life and have lived in dorms and apartment complexes so I know that killing multiple roaches a day should not be the norm. I was afraid to even make food in the kitchen because it might attract the pests. At one point, I was eating my lunch and a roach was suddenly on my plate and crawling towards my chips. They seemed to appear out of nowhere at all times - we killed roaches in every room of the apartment except maybe the closet in the bedroom. Rather than stay the last night by myself (because my SO had to leave early), I couldn’t take it anymore so I did all the checkout steps during the day and booked myself a hotel to stay somewhere else for the last night. If you have a high tolerance for pests and don’t mind killing them as they pop up, then maybe you can stay here, but if you’re like me and you can’t stand bugs, I wouldn’t recommend it.