While I genuinely wanted to enjoy our short stay at the Hyde Park Casita, unfortunately that was not how our time there went. We had high hopes given the overall rating. Our stay consisted of approximately 8 hours - an hour to drop off bags and rest from the drive in and then back to sleep before driving home in the morning. A quick trip to see friends for dinner in Austin and drop off some large items we were gifting their soon to be born baby.
The Casita has some lovely small home charms, but the issues we did have I noticed were those that had been mentioned in previous negative reviews and the owner has seemingly chose not to address these. Examples are mold/mildewed shower door (at the base), moldy/mildew shower squeegee, unfinished/rough trim in the hallway that is easy to scrape against for nighttime bathroom trips, small gaps in the hallway trim that let in mosquitoes from outside, an extremely uncomfortable mattress and no fan to help with air circulation. This last one was the kicker for us because with Texas summers, and heat advisories abound, keeping things cool I would consider a very basic need in accommodations. This need is not met at the Casita.
The A/C was set at 74 upon arrival, in addition to an open bathroom window, so the Casita was a bit of a sauna. The heat put the small unit working to it's limits and is placed so high that there is no air circulation. No ceiling fan or plug in fan are provided. We closed the window and did adjust the A/C to it's coolest setting (62) and allowed time for it to adjust while out at dinner, and it did not help as we hoped. Returning well after dark it had still not substantially cooled. So while I am not very heat tolerant I admit, my husband is - and even he found attempting to sleep in the oppressive heat nearly impossible. We were gone by 6am, having fully given up on the idea of rest before driving home to Houston. At least our car had A/C, we reasoned. Set the unit to 74 before we left as I assume that is where the owner wishes it to be while unoccupied.
I typically do not leave negative reviews, but in this case the lack of response to constructive criticism in previous reviews is very troubling to me. The response to others seems to be "we can't fix an issue if you don't contact us" which I fully understand. We did not contact the owner about these issues for two reasons - they were issue he chose not to fix after prior guests had flagged them so asking felt futile, and it was 11pm when we got settled in so to ask for unlikely support so late seemed rude. Most of the issues, aside from a fan, would not be fixable instantly or at that hour. A previous guest mentioned asking for a fan and being told there was not one available, so that also made us just deal with the heat.
While there are some lovely things about the Casita, I feel like their biggest challenge is meeting constructive criticism with the enthusiasm to actively improve the stay of each following guest - that is what reviews are for. But as far as I've read in nearly all of the owners replies to poor reviews highlighting issues is a belief that because the majority of guests haven't mentioned these issues they must not be worth fixing. And I think that they are, so please do better for future guests.