This was my first Sonder stay, and it wasn’t a great first impression.
Pros: Valet is included, and the unit is tastefully decorated, and the customer service representatives were polite.
Cons: Thin walls, long customer service wait times, filthy lobby (spilled food that hadn’t been cleaned for hours was on the ground at one point), not the cleanest shower, and company uses a third party security firm to resolve certain issues, which means it takes longer to resolve issues.
My Experience:
I wouldn’t recommend this specific Sonder location. Due to the building’s poor foundation (it’s an older remodeled building), you can hear every bit of noise from the neighbors through the walls.
I’m not one to file noise complaints unless absolutely necessary, but a particular party was so loud and lasted until a little after 4 am. The walls were so thin, I could hear conversations and heels walking across the floor as if I were in the other unit myself. Since the company doesn’t own every unit in this building, they use a third party security firm (from what I was told by a representative) to resolve issues such as noise complaints.
I submitted the first complaint around 10:30/11 pm. Initially, I was told by two Sonder representatives (after waiting on hold around 15+ minutes each time), that they located the unit where the noise was coming from and asked the guests to quiet down. However, I didn’t find out until much later that they actually hadn’t located the correct unit where the noise was coming from, so the party continued on through the night.
I was on the fourth floor, and the party they claimed to have stopped was on the second floor (I didn’t find this out until around 3 am). I’m not sure how a company could think that I, being on the fourth floor, would be able to hear a party happening on the second floor in an apartment building. I gave it some time (a few hours) to see if the guests would quiet down. They didn’t.
Finally, around 3:30 am, after getting no sleep, I left the room to investigate myself and called the company back with the unit number where the party was taking place. The third representative told me that they didn’t own that specific unit, and they would have to contact their security firm to resolve the issue. I’m not sure if the security firm ever made it to the unit, but the party eventually settled down around 4:15 am.
While Sonder finally offered (5 hours later) to reimburse me for my last night’s stay, I would’ve much rather preferred a good night’s rest and a customer service team who’s able to effectively resolve issues in a timely manner.
I would highly suggest researching the apartment buildings for Sonder’s stays on Yelp or Google prior to booking.