First, I must give this VRBO the credit it deserves:
Wow, this home is gorgeous. The remodel/decor are like a dream. The kitchen is well stocked. The balcony is spacious & private...we enjoyed many mornings and nights relaxing on the balcony. But, I will say- please believe the reviews that say the street is loud. It is very true...it's as if the sound amplifies off the buildings that surround the VRBO.
The bad- The bath in the loft is unusable. The space leading to the bathroom has an industrial sized water heater that produces so much heat that it makes the bathroom unbearably hot, like sauna hot. There also was no hot water in the loft shower, all 4 of us tried, so I doubt it was user error.
The really bad- We stayed 6 days...for 5 of those days there was a god awful sewer smell that filled the home. It was incredibly strong in the loft. We promptly let the owner know. He quickly responded and sent management over, we were told this sometimes happens in Charleston and that it would be gone in 24 hours. The smell came and went the entire 6 days of our trip. I used all my perfume trying to mask the smell....the loft windows don't open, so we couldn't vent the smell out of the home. The one day of nasal relief that we received was Sunday- the day that the restaurant was closed. We contacted management again to make them aware that the smell did not go away and requested room spray. The response was kind, very apologetic, and prompt....however, our problem was never solved. We were told "that's Charleston for you" and "the other building smells much worse." I just don't believe it's a Charleston thing. We have friends that were staying 3 blocks away that didn't have any foul odor in their vrbo. In addition, even if this "is a Charleston problem" a simple and very effective solution is an odor tight check valve.
The unusable loft bathroom and chronic sewer smell were incredibly disappointing. We paid a lot of $ to smell sewer all week. Property management was sincerely apologetic but that did nothing to fix the problem for us. There was no offer to make things right. No money refunded, nothing. Heck, even dinner downstairs at Stella's would have been a nice gesture....like, "Hey, sorry the home smells so baldy that you have to spray perfume on your pillow to mask the smell long enough to fall asleep....so go get drunk on us- maybe you'll pass out and forget about the smell for a night."
*Staff was kind & held our bags after checkout.