My family and I have been fortunate to stay in many wonderful vacation rentals over the years. Never had a bad experience. Never had to write a bad review because the places were all great, up until now. This had to be the worst vacation rental experience ever. At $270 per night, we expected much better than this. In order of occurrence:
1. The host sent us contact info for our on site contact three days before our arrival. We reached out to the local contact via email with no reply. Called the local contact the day before arrival to find out he was on vacation and not available to meet us. He said he had told the company he would be unavailable the week prior. I contacted the company directly at the number given, the person was not that friendly, not apologetic for the miscommunication, but they gave us the info for the self-checkin option.
2. When we arrived at the building we were struck by the smell of urine at the front door.
The elevator to our 13th floor unit had little air circulation and a strong smell of disinfectant. And the hallway to the unit was dark and dingy. (It was a large apartment building so this was not necessarily the host’s responsibility, but it certainly didn’t set the best tone for our stay).
3. The unit was dated and very poorly maintained. Floors were dirty, carpets stained, window blinds didn’t work properly, spattered coffee stains on walls and door frame of the kitchen, wires and cables dangling from the ceiling in one bedroom, dust balls under the dresser in the other bedroom, disgusting and filthy filter duct taped to a vent in the bathroom, refrigerator crisper drawer had 1/2 inch of water in it, picture hooks left on the wall where apparently there used to be a picture, and more. When we contacted the host, they were not friendly, they were unsympathetic, and not very interested in helping rectify the situation. They just told me to take pictures of everything we took issue with and send them the photos and detailed explanation of our grievances. They also told me to send it to airbnb, so I did.
4. The building is adjacent to the I5 freeway. There is a constant drone of traffic noise with windows closed. There is no AC in this unit, the unit faces west so the sun heats it up all afternoon, and the temperature in Seattle was warm so we had to open windows to get some air circulation. This unleashed a torrent of noise from the freeway that was unbearable. No exaggeration, we needed to shout to hear each other and sleeping with the windows open was impossible. Sleeping with the windows closed was hot and uncomfortable, in spite of the ceiling fans in the bedrooms.The unit had no portable fans or cooling devices in the living spaces. The choice was the loud, constant noise of the freeway or endure the hot and stuffy apartment.
5. Airbnb assisted us (Dennis was very kind, professional, and helpful) in cancelling the remainder of our 1 week stay and facilitated a refund. We agreed to pay for the 2 nights we were staying plus fees. The host issued the refund but, without warning, increased the nightly rate by $19. With fees factored in that’s about $60 for the 2 nights. When notifying them of their mistake, they claimed that they were not able to make any adjustment as per airbnb policy. We are currently trying to resolve this with an airbnb specialist.
6. In addition to the above, we have now spent many hours on the phone, emailing, messaging with the host and airbnb as well as time spent trying to find another place to stay in Seattle at the last minute when very little was available. We ultimately found a beautiful, clean, and well appointed place to finish out our vacation in style.
This place was just awful from start to finish.