One of my less good AirBnB experiences, unfortunately.

The apartment is fine - it's pretty character-less, rather than stylish - it's not really a home; it's not that well-equipped for cooking (I had to buy a pot big enough to cook some pasta); and it's not exactly harbourside, though it is quite near. But it is very clean and everything functions fine, including the washer/dryer and the dishwasher - with a few major exceptions.

First, when I checked in, there was no wifi device, even though the ad stated the place had wifi. I was staying there in order to work, and wifi was key, so I needed it. Nicole, whose place it is, seems lovely, but she was out of the country, and the caretaker she arranged to give me the key was aggressively anxious and not very knowledgeable about the place. She didn't know where the wifi device was, and Nicole didn't either.

Nicole was apologetic and happy to replace it, but because she was in Europe and her caretaker knew nothing about internet stuff, I had to do the research to find a new one and I had to install it, which took a fair number of hours over more than a week (communication was hard with Nicole because of the time difference between here and Europe).

During that time - nearly a third of my stay - I ended up having to use my own phone internet - which sent me over my download limit. I asked Nicole to reimburse me the $30 to cover those costs; she never responded.

Once that was resolved, things were fine, though I had to clear out once to have a real estate agent do a tour for a potential future tenant, and the key exchange at the end was again very difficult because of the caretaker's anxiety about driving anywhere (she wouldn't let me drop the keys at the real estate agent's who managed the place because she didn't know where it was located, even though it was less than a kilometer from the apartment).

Then the caretaker called me twice within fifteen minutes while I was at work the day after I'd checked out insisting I call her back urgently - it turned out the urgent matter was that she needed to know what laundry was clean and what wasn't, even though it was all pretty obviously clean since I'd folded it and put it in the closet.

Because of all this trouble, I asked Nicole for a partial refund. She asked how much, and I suggested a half-week - and again she didn't respond, and that was a week ago.

Like I say, Nicole seems nice enough, and I'm sure if she was actually here in Sydney the experience would have been smoother - but given the caretaker I had to deal with, the internet, the real estate tour, and the high expense of the place, I wouldn't stay there again.