Reviews are very important for Airbnb guests and hosts; I read them carefully. When I read Noah’s review of 2019, I wasn’t that concerned because there had been positive reviews since then. Unfortunately, our experience was very similar to Noah’s.
The Good: walk to restaurants, bakery, and market. Close to Ballard & Seattle. Off-street parking. Soft sheets and towels. Tim will respond in a timely manner to texts.Tim has a very good handyman; unfortunately, we had to spend the better part of 3 days of our vacation for him to fix needed repairs. There are boxes of toys for children.
The Bad: The house is on a very busy street (noisy and hard to get out of the driveway). The house was very dusty; the host told me it had been cleaned 3 weeks before after the last tenant had left and offered to send a cleaner. By that time, I had already dusted. I did ask him to have the very tall grass/weeds mowed. Two weeks into our stay, I dropped a pen behind the couch. When I moved the furniture to retrieve the pen, I was disgusted by the dirt, dust, detritus. The kitchen contains a jumble of unmatched, chipped dishes and incomplete containers. There were THREE glasses with an assortment of jars. I like to cook and bake, so I was very disappointed that there wasn’t even a measuring cup or measuring spoons. The “Bewitched” stove works, but the oven’s thermostat doesn’t regulate properly; the oven just gets hotter and hotter. Dining room chairs are so uncomfortable, we had to put folded blankets on them. (The padded chairs shown in pictures of the dining nook are not in the home.) The refrigerator leaked. The handyman came a week later, and we were told this problem had been an on-going problem. The two fireplace chairs shown in the picture are old and offer no support. Stairs leading upstairs and to the basement are steep.
The Ugly: When we drove up, the house looked abandoned - tall, dead grass/weeds, a dead tree in the front, untrimmed bushes, chipped and peeling paint, spongy stairs caked with moss (they need to be replaced), and a rusty chair on the landing. The inside also needs a deep clean - walls are stained and dirty. There is chipped and peeling paint. Pillows have sweat and blood stains on them. (There are no zippered pillow covers.) Bathtub looks dirty even after cleaning; it needs to be refinished. Both of the two bathtub mats had mildew and dried soap scum and had to be cleaned before use. The crockpot had not been cleaned properly and had food remains inside. We didn’t use the BBQ grill; it looks rather new, but again, it had not been cleaned. The host points out the upgrades they have made upstairs, but the main problem is maintenance. We were so uncomfortable in this house that we left 11 days early.