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Review 2765: Owner, #72216

www.vrbo.com

Not Recommended. Review by travelfamily from US

2bed/1bath apartment in Kensington Chelsea, London

When

October 2006, 1 week

Location

Located on Elsham Road, very near Shepards Bush tube. Lovely dead end street, quiet, beautiful walk to to tube.

Nearby Amenities

Excellent Iranian and Chinese take out food located 1/2 block away. Small corner grocery 1/2 block. Large supermarket located near tube stop.

The House/Apartment

Old building possibly five or six other flats located in this building. The flat is located on the second floor.

Garden

Outside grass area being used by owner of one flat for a children's play area, I am not sure if that area was for everyone. The owner of the children is a little rude, and does not appear to like that some of the flats are being rented out (which is understandable-different people coming in and out all the time: It just makes it very uncomfortable for the renters).

Furnishings/Cleanliness/Living Areas

The apartment looks great on the VRBO website. It is modern, but the photos are quite deceiving. It is much smaller than it appears. I think the furniture had been pushed around to make the photos look larger. At least some of the furniture was different or taken out before our use. This apartment was dirty. The towels were limited and were put away wet with stains on them. We needed to wash the towels before we could use them. The kitchen and dishes were also dirty. We used paper products as there was no dishwasher and the dishes were dirty.

Bedrooms/Bathrooms

There were two bedrooms and one bath. The master bed was as hard as a rock, after one night I switched to the sofa (It should be noted the sofa bed had a broken rod and could not be used) I had to sleep on the sagging sofa. The other bedroom was used by my parents. They noted it was very hard and the size of perhaps a small double (It looked just a little larger than a twin). There were absolutely no extra linens. It states that this apartment sleeps six. There is no way this could be possible, it is very small and the sofa bed was broken.

Kitchen

As stated earlier the kitchen was quite modern but dirty. No dishwasher. There was a washer/dryer combo that washed well but took 4-5 hours to dry. I think that may have been the problem with the towels when we arrived. It was possible to wash and then hang the clothes on the drying rack in the bathroom.

Problems or Bonuses

The major problem was that we were switched at the very last minute to this apartment, from a two-bed two-bath apartment. That would have been fine, if that were the only problem, but after the use of the first shower, there was a leak to the floor below. We then had a two-bed no bath apartment for two days and then the maintenance man (very friendly by the way) came and took the shower head. For the remainder of our trip we could only take baths.

Bonuses: The nearby restaurants were great, the street is beautiful, the laptop was useful.

Agency and Representatives (and price)

We received a telephone call from the owner immediately after putting in our request. He was so friendly, sent tons of information. As soon as we wired our deposit, that's where his friendliness stopped. Our rate changed, there were extra charges for cleaning and more than two people charges, which were not stated before. Then to top it off, one week before we left we got a rude email stating that our apartment had been switched from a two bed, two bath with dishwasher, to a two bed, one bath no dishwasher, and we needed to wire the additional money. At that late date we could not find another apartment and we had already wired a large deposit.

Do you recommend this vacation rental to others?

No, I would not recommend this owner and or apartment. The street was great, but the unfriendliness of this owner and the owner of the flat below would make it hard for me to rent here again. Also the cleanliness, left a lot to be desired. The owner also only accepted money being wired to him, this meant paying wire fees in addition to the rental payments. (We did receive our deposit back.)

Things to do in this area

As stated earlier, this street is very nice. It is a little far from touristy stuff, but is a nice neighborhood, with good food, and a close tube stop.

This review is the opinion of a Slow Travel member and not of slowtrav.com.

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