Our family stayed here for 36 nights in the process of moving to the area. I’ll first share the positives and then the things we wish we’d known prior to booking, and finally the reasons we wouldn’t recommend more than a short-term stay.
First, the beds and bedding are very comfortable, as other reviewers have said. The backyard is a nice little sanctuary with all sort of fun birds to watch and listen to. If mid-century/modern is your thing, and anywhere-in-Austin is your destination, you’ll probably just love this place. Kim was very responsive and normally accommodating and helpful as issues popped up.
Things we wish we had known: there is no table, which is unfortunate for a family during a longer stay. There is a high bar with stools that works fine for adults, but not for little kiddos (or my 80 year old grandmother, in our situation). Not a big deal for a weekend stay, business trip, or a couple’s getaway of course. But not good for a family.
The thermostat is controlled by the owner remotely; it’s their preference to keep it set to 75 in the summer apparently. Due to my grandmother’s chronic breathing issues, Kim was willing to accommodate us and make the new low 72, but I assume that was an exception to the rule. When someone is paying to stay in your place, I think insisting on keeping the air set to 75 is a bit high and feel it important to share that with other potential Airbnbers.
Issues we had that made this feel like a not-so-great stay: tree roaches in the house daily... culminating in one ending up in my grandmother’s hair in the middle of the night. Humorous afterward, but not at the time. They did have someone come spray immediately. Grass: they don’t like to cut the grass. They cut it once, early on, at our request. A second request later in the stay to please cut it again was given a verbal yes but never happened. The backyard is lovely, but got too long about ten days before our checkout date for the kiddos to actually enjoy Being out there without ending up covered in bug bites. I found it frustrating that the lovely backyard advertised as a booking point was not kept in enjoyable condition. We had a fair amount of rain during our stay, so the grass definitely did some growing.
We also had questionable, strung-out characters knocking on the door occasionally, mistaking the house for a “different” one. Not a big deal for adults, but with little kiddos we made sure to reinforce rules about not opening the door without Mom or Dad.
Various other home maintenance issues— oven setting off the smoke alarms just about every time we used it with rare exception, in spite of cleaning it and even unscrewing the bottom pan ourselves to try and see what might be causing the issue around the coils. All to no avail.
Sink leak that they DID promptly fix.
Smoke alarms that all went off the same night needing batteries replaced.
Finally, we felt the house was very poorly stocked for a party of five staying for over a month. We were provided 4 dishwasher tabs, 1 trash bag, 4 rolls of toilet paper, 1 swiffer cloth and a broken handheld vacuum to keep up with our pet hair for the month, and no paper towels or dishcloths. Kim DID end up purchasing a little featherlight vacuum at our request, however, for which we were very grateful.
But our whole experience taken together left us with the impression that they intend to spend as little time and money on upkeep of the home as possible and only tend to matters as guests complain. I think this place would be perfectly sufficient for a short stay, but we can’t recommend it for anything more unfortunately.