Overall, my girlfriends and I had a great time at this house. Here are the details:
Location: The location of the house was great - right in the center of town, close to everything. Parking, though, was rough. The house is on a busy street near downtown bars and Minute Maid stadium, so it was hard to find consistent parking. There was a garage, but it was tight and cluttered.
House: The house is huge with many upgrades (in particular kitchen appliances and bathroom sinks/showers). Upon first glance, it’s super cute, modern, and spacious, with a bathroom in every bedroom (major plus) - perfect for 7 adult women. There are four floors and a million stairs (which we didn’t fully expect). However, the house definitely looks highly used and it could use a DEEP cleaning and some updates. There were lots of scuffs and scrapes and hand prints on the walls, tiles coming up in the showers, cobwebs under the stairs, the cabinets on the fourth floor where the games are kept were FILTHY, the lights on the patio lights didn’t work, and the wood floors needed cleaning. The coffee maker had a filter in it that looked like it had been there for years, which indicates the cleaners really just do a surface job. The sofa and chairs need to be cleaned as well since they are upholstered pieces. The gate in front of the house was unreliable - sometimes it opened, sometimes it didn’t. On surface, it’s a really nice house, but as you get settled, it’s easy to see it needs some work done, especially if they will continue to put a premium price on it.
Host: We never heard from the host, which was not a necessarily problem because we didn’t have any issues. However, I am accustomed to at least receiving a greeting message upon arrival with reminders/helpful tips and a “thank you” when it’s time to leave. We never heard from the host at all, but the details included were sufficient enough for what we needed. One thing: there’s doorbell-like button on the side of the main gate that is not particularly noticeable but required to open the gate to pull in a vehicle. I had just happened to see someone push that button when I arrived, but I had to show other guests in another vacation home on the property where the button was because they could not figure out how to get their cars onto the property. This would have been helpful info
Overall, we had a good time. Would we stay again? Probably, but only if it’s cleaned properly and freshly painted.