Mixed ***
Don’t break house rules and you will see the good Deb.
The property:
Deb really goes above and beyond in staging the basement apartment. For a mostly underground space, the rooms (great room, bedroom, bathroom, kitchen closet) are well lit. There are two beds, a futon, a crib, and a small dining table with chairs. Deb provides many extras not normally found with Airbnb properties. Bedding was comfortable and plentiful (more on this in a moment). The kitchen area has everything you need, less running water and a stove. Fresh water is provided for making coffee, tea, and drinking. The only thing I found to be odd is there is a curtain in the kitchen area covering an unfinished wall, and behind the curtain is graffiti art depicting Pagan style pentagrams, cartoon images of pot smoking, bloodshot eyes, etc. This art did not offend me personally and I was the only one in our group to see this, but I’m glad I did not have to explain them to my 5-year-old son who was with us. Noises are present from activity upstairs, but did not bother us. One other note, if you are over 6’ tall, it is likely you will hit your head walking through doorways if not careful. I would normally rate this space 5 stars and not think twice.
Deb is a REALLY attentive host. We were a bit tired after attending a music festival in Wisconsin and really booked this spot at the last minute to be a bit closer to the airport for an early flight back home the next morning. Deb waits in the driveway for you to arrive then proceeds to spend the next 20 minutes going over every detail of the space, restaurants, parks, the mall, and the airport. After 8 years I must say Deb is the most active Airbnb host we’ve ever experienced, if not a bit intrusive. Look, Deb has responded to all 235 guest reviews as of this writing and will respond to this one. This behavior is an indicator of a personality trait I will look for in the future. But, so far, I would have still rated this place 5 stars.
But….we broke a house rule, evidently a big one (sorry we did not read them…in a hurry and exhausted during booking). We originally booked through Airbnb for 4 adults, one child, and one infant. This entire group was flying out early the next morning. As we were driving from Wisconsin, my wife’s father and his traveling buddy (two men in their mid-sixties) who were in a separate vehicle and continuing out west decided to stay with us one more night in Minneapolis. When we arrived, 1st group in the rental van, we mentioned to Deb we had a second car that would be there shortly. Deb let us know this car would not be allowed to park in the driveway, but ok on the street. Ok, no problem. Deb did not mention the headcount issue, but she surely must have been thinking about it. It did not cross our minds to even bring it up either as it was obvious more people were arriving. We go in, see paragraph 1. Again no mention of too many guests, when Deb shows us additional bedding that would have been enough to sleep 12. Anyway, we go have dinner and all are in bed by 8:30-9:00pm. The flying crowd leaves Deb’s place around 8:00am, and the road trippers leave by 10:00am. When we land in Florida (2PMEST), I see I have a message in the Airbnb app from Deb asking if we had two additional guests, in a very passive way (Deb knew the answer), message at 10:14 am. I replied that, yes, we did have two last- minute additions, and we were sorry if we caused any problems, and would be glad to pay an additional fee on top of the $179 we had already paid for an 18-hour stay. When I checked my email later, I see the original message and a subsequent message from Deb asking for additional money for extra guests. This second message, posted 4 minutes after the first, was much more strongly worded. The second message did not show in the App, I guess because Airbnb resolved the issue behind the scenes prior to us landing in Florida and responding to the first. Anyway, I went ahead and sent Deb a manual payment for $28, with an apologetic note. Two more days go by and Deb unloads on us in a message and has been progressively hostile in her correspondence….Drill Sergeant style. Future guests who are looking to stay here, go for it, but please review and stay within the house rules. If you do not, it will get uncomfortable for you during or even after your stay. For Hosts, I would ask for you to confront your future guests at the time if you see a misrepresentation, and not let it build into explosive trembling rage later. We could have taken care of this prior to even walking into the space.