The location is great, though ‘boat house’ is a stretch. You can walk to the lake but this is just a basement apartment. That being said, the apartment was as pictured and, other than some shoddy flooring which another reviewer mentioned, was perfectly serviceable. Not particularly well equipped but everything worked as described.
However, the host uses another property management platform called aardvark (which a quick search indicates he is very likely at least a part owner of, based on LinkedIn and the OpenCorporate listing for this business ) that you don’t see till you book.
There you will find a lot of additional rules and fees for breaking them. While the rules were not particularly onerous, it felt sort of weird to have secret penalties you agree to without knowing. It definitely detracted from the experience as we were constantly worried about accidentally using the wrong towel etc or being accused of breaking other rules without knowing.
Which turned out to be pretty accurate, actually. Weeks prior to arrival, we asked for a late check out as our fourth guest was arriving into Seattle late that night. We were told that only the cleaning company could approve of this and that they would let the host know IF we could check out late at 8am the day of checkout and that we needed to reminded the host to ask the day before. This sort of defeated the purpose of late check out but I did it anyway. We were approved around 8:15am for check out at 11am instead of 10am. We left at 10:55 or so and went back to Olympia.
Around 4pm I received an accusatory text from the host saying that he had approved 11am but “the cleaners” had informed him that I was “still in his home” and asking that I explain what happened. I told him this was inaccurate and that we were already home, sending him a screenshot of my current location with time visible to prove we had left and long ago returned to Olympia. He apologized, but it felt very rude and somewhat suspicious to be accused of overstaying by 5 hours when the “cleaning company” or anyone else who actually showed up could easily have opened the door with the code and seen we were gone, had done the dishes, taken out garbage and recycling, and followed every other rule to the letter.
It also was extremely notable that the host has an overstay penalty of $20 for every 15 minutes you stay past check out.
It felt like the host was trying to get me to admit to a later checkout than agreed to so I would pay extra. I also noted that if the cleaners didn’t need to be there till 4pm then they probably could have ‘approved’ a little more generous check out time given our friend’s travel plans, but that’s not really the issue.
The host apologized but along with the additional litany of secret rules and fees, the experience was not a good one. The space is fine and the location is great, but treating all your guests like potential criminals is pretty off-putting.