The home needs work and the homeowner needs hospitality training. Initially when I booked the location Lillian was prompt to reach out to ensure that she knew the ages of everyone staying in the home and that we would not be invited to have guest or parties… which is fine. We were in NOLA to eat food and visit museums, the Whitney Plantation and other low key areas.
A week before we arrived I asked her to confirm if there was a coffee maker and kitchen supplies in the home, she never responded. I had to text her to tell her to look in the app. I was told there was a Keurig, coffee, sugar, and creamer. When we arrived there was a Mr. Coffee w/ coffee and filters.
THE HOME
The Door. It’s not perfectly fit to the frame and there’s a gap of an inch at the bottom. You’ll need to move the mat at the front to cover this gap and hope nothing comes in. The second thing you’ll notice is that the door handle is not firm. If someone wanted to break in, this would be possible. Once you open the door, there is an strong funk that hits you. Someone has a dog, and it’s unbearable. *bring air fresheners.
The first room is wide open to the first part of the house. Not a lot of privacy. The 2nd room w/ two beds is not a room. There’s no place to store your clothing, so you’ll have to leave stuff in your suitcase. The third room is the closest to the kitchen. No concerns.
The bathrooms are challenging. You cannot actually use the bathtub, the knob for the cold water was missing and the water is extremely hot.
The doors do not close completely on either bathroom and the last bathroom just has a cutout in the door for the handle. No locks. With four adults trying to share one shower it doubled our time for trips/adventure. This was an inconvenience and I paid with the expectation of 2 full bathrooms, not 1.5.
The backyard is overgrown and there’s probably some wildlife living back there. At night we could hear something moving across the roof.
The kitchen is tolerable.
After our first night in the home Lillian reached out to see if everything was ok. I expressed the concerns about the door, the smell, the bathrooms, and the coffee pot. She never replied. After 2 days, we were starting to feel more uncomfortable and since the homeowner was not responsive we left the rental early. I worked with VRBO to refund us for the night we didn’t stay. Lillian refused to send back what we asked for even after asking us to name a price.
