Pleasant views, light, good kitchen. Decor less than photos. Scaled support model means less personal touch/quality controls missing.
I was glad to have a safe and clean place to stay in an emergency and when I requested, with an additional payment of $75, I was able to check in early at 1pm instead of 4pm with a same-day booking made at 6am. The lock, wifi and lights worked well and it was nice to sit in the breakfast nook and watch out the window. Street parking was indeed easy.
The hosts now have over 50 properties marketed on many platforms and the personal touch is lacking. The hosts require guests to fill out lengthy forms with many signature boxes outside airbnb before they will answer any questions or provide a door code. For a same-day booking for one person this felt onerous. Maintenance requests via airbnb appear unwelcome/inconvenient to the host and written responses are slow to come. However, housekeeping service does come when requested especially by SMS text message, and eventually maintenance issues get fixed.
In my case when I checked in, the main bedroom had no curtains so the neighbors could if they looked see me in bed, the microwave didn’t work, one chair was missing and one was broken, the couch had stuffing coming out of it and there were no throw cushions or cushions on the dining chairs, a smoke detector was missing, soap was missing from a basin, the hair conditioner wouldn’t dispense and the yard was extremely overgrown and had overflowing trash cans. Photos in the listing were taken when the paint was fresh (not yet dinged up by use), and large posters adorned the property (many of which had now vanished to be replaced by much smaller prints without the same visual impact). It appears that power cords to lights and appliances were photoshopped out of the photos too - so the listing gives an impression of a more well-put-together design than this 2022 guest experienced. In response to my requests a friendly housekeeper brought me curtains I could put up, a countertop microwave, soap and conditioner to use, and the yard was mowed and the trash put away all by the evening of my second day - so the issues that affected me most were solved by halfway through my stay.
Two days after I departed the host reached out by email and indicated that the remaining issues that I had reported at the property (and some others I hadn’t spotted) had now been fixed by their maintenance crew, and suggested she might provide me with a credit of $110. She indicated that the issues had been caused by my moving in before the property was ready for reoccupation after a long-stay family moved out. However I had booked a property on a date showing available in calendar - the hosts could have blocked it out until these repairs had been done, but chose instead to list it and to take revenue from me for that weekend.
I was disappointed that the host didn’t reach out proactively while I was there to apologize for my experience and that of the $1445 I paid for 3 nights she only proposed to credit me $110 on my request. I wrote back indicating I didn’t think the $110 was a fair response. We’re now 5 days since checkout and I have received no credit at all. I felt I paid the price of a premium stay but received a more bare-bones experience, and I didn’t feel as “loved” as I usually do at an airbnb stay. For a large group utilizing the many beds in the basement, where the energy of the group interaction is the driving force behind the trip, though, these “details” may not matter so much - and the facility issues may now indeed be fixed. The property can support a large group. Maybe my not so great experience really was just a one-off.