Georgette G.

I rented a vacation property through the website/company homeaway. The property owner is a company called Namastay. As their name says and their website, property description, etc. They aim to provide properties that are Zen. This is how they represent their company in pages like Linked in, their own webpages hostckick.ca and namastay.io and google

Hospitality with a twist of health and wellness. Namastay offers zen-designed home stays that feature a health focused kitchen, in-home fitmenities, and access to local fitness centres. We encourage our guests to get active, partake in curated wellness experiences, eat healthy and stay well throughout the duration of their stay.

Well after being charged over 2,300.00 to stay at one of their properties located in Miami Beach, I have enough to tell you about their hospitality.
The property, its amenities and safety were quite misrepresented and furthermore hazardous. I contacted the host regarding all the issues I will mention. I also did send him photos and a video of ants crawling up the walls. I did this 2 days after my check in date and got no reply to it. I sent a few messages after that one. I actually did get a reply regarding all those issues 11 days after. I will eventually elaborate on that reply.

Some of the amenities offered on the property rental page are the following:

Peaceful 1 bedroom in South Beach

Not peaceful nor Namastay. More like nightmarestay. Sleep is the most basic and important human need and it has been disrupted so has my peace of mind by the company of smaller creatures. The apartment has large roaches who enjoy the bathroom, specially one that has preference for the toilet paper. Water bugs who enjoy the bed, specially the pillow next to mine. They also enjoyed biting my feet. There is another kind of tiny creature/insect that likes the kitchen. The eating utensils drawer, poops in my magic bullet blender, etc. Then there is the unfriendly kind: The ants colony. No nice ants but the ones that byte. The rental page says the apartment accommodates 4 guest because of the sofa bed. Nope that area is owned by the ants colony so forget about using that either as a bed or for seating purposes. Even staying away from that area I did get bytes quite often.

24/7 availability from the host if needed

Nope. 11 days after someone finally called me and offered me a move to another unit. No apology, no courtesy whatsoever. At that point, however, I had already realized this unit is not the only issue, to my perception the whole property is. The same unfriendly ants, lizards and a possum run the property grounds, what are supposed to be pretty water fountains are dirty old water pods with old used flip flops in it creating bacteria. Worst than that the paper goods provided to the guest including the paper towels that I used to use as napkins and the toilet paper are stored in a container in the back of the property right next to the dumpster surrounded by bacteria and insects. Being these the reasons why I did not want a move to another unit within this property I just wanted my money back and to leave this place period. Which the host ignored. A couple of times he said he would call me but did not. Invited me to a google video call he did not show up to. Sent me each one of the email messages regarding such never made phone calls from the same email address but using a different name.

Air conditioner

Yes there is two of them. Both brokem. The central ac does not cool at all, the one in the bedroom was constantly leaking and blowing water bugs towards the bed instead of air.
Miami Beach is at this time of the year 100 degree weather. It has been very hot in this apartment. This lack of ventilation is in fact non compliance with the property rental codes of this city.

Iron and Board
There was an iron with no board

Coffee maker
Yes there was one with no coffee pot in it.

Dining - Comfy seating for 4

Nope. There is a round table with two chairs.

Wood Stove

Nope. There is a plastic 2 burner stove top that looks like the kind 3 year old girls play with when they play cooking with their friends and does not work. It turns on but does not even heat up water.

Besides all the amenities offered and not given this was simply a

Hazardous uninhabitable property

Besides the bugs, lack of proper ventilation and proper sanitary conditions the bathroom seems to be falling apart. A few shower stall tiles are so broken I got bruises on my big toe. The structure that holds the towels is chipping. Metal shavings are constantly falling from it so as soon as I went to grab the towel I got cuts on my hand and my finger.

Due to my complaint, a Miami beach officer of Property Codes Compliance came to inspect the apartment on June 28th and left a notice demanding everything be repaired within seven days. Notice that the host paid no mind to either.

I contacted homeaway.com because they offer a book with confidence kind of warranty. Well another misrepresentation because they certainly did not honor it.

I honestly wrote this review so that no one also goes through this kind of experience. So I suggest not dealing with either of those companies for your travel/lodging needs.

Homeaway advertises a booking with confidence policy type of warranty to travelers who rent properties using their services. They did not honor that policy with me and provided me no help during a nightmare stay. They do open what they call a complaint, give you a case number, tell you they will investigate further. Then you get an email message telling you to try to reach the property owner to come to an agreement. Really? I contacted them because the property owner, after ignoring me for several days started playing games with me back and forth. He said he would call me a few time, and did not. Then he actually invited me on a google live meeting, that he did not show up to. If I could have solved things with the property owner I would have not asked them for help to begin with. Duh.

I rented a vacation property through their website. There were so many issues with the property.

Well after being charged over $2,400.00 to stay at the property located in Miami Beach, I have enough to tell you about their hospitality.
The property, its amenities and safety were quite misrepresented and furthermore hazardous. I contacted the host regarding all the issues I will mention. I also did send him photos. I did this 2 days after my check in date and got no reply to it. I sent a few messages after that one. I actually did get a reply regarding all those issues 11 days after. I will eventually elaborate on that reply.

Some of the amenities offered on the property rental page are the following:

Peaceful 1 bedroom in South Beach

Not peaceful nor Namastay. More like nightmarestay. Sleep is the most basic and important human need and it has been disrupted so has my peace of mind by the company of smaller creatures. The apartment has large roaches who enjoy the bathroom, specially one that has preference for the toilet paper. Water bugs who enjoy the bed, specially the pillow next to mine. There is another kind of tiny creature/insect that likes the kitchen. The eating utensils drawer, poops in my magic bullet blender, etc. Then there is the unfriendly kind: The ants colony. No nice ants but the ones that byte. The rental page says the apartment accommodates 4 guest because of the sofa bed. Nope that area is owned by the ants colony so forget about using that either as a bed or for seating purposes. Even staying away from that area I did get bytes as you will notice from the pictures.

24/7 availability from the host if needed

Nope. 11 days after someone finally called me and offered me a move to another unit. No apology, no courtesy whatsoever. At that point, however, I had already realized this unit is not the only issue, to my perception the whole property is. The same unfriendly ants, lizards and a possum run the property grounds, what are supposed to be pretty water fountains are dirty old water pods with old used flip flops in it creating bacteria. Worst than that the paper goods provided to the guest including the paper towels that I used to use as napkins and the toilet paper are stored in a container in the back of the property right next to the dumpster surrounded by bacteria and insects. Being these the reasons why I did not want a move to another unit within this property I just wanted my money back and to leave this place period. Which the host ignored. A couple of times he said he would call me but did not. Invited me to a google video call he did not show up to. Sent me each one of the email messages regarding such never made phone calls from the same email address but using a different name.

Air conditioner

Yes there is two of them. Both brokem. The central ac does not cool at all, the one in the bedroom was constantly leaking and blowing water bugs towards the bed instead of air.
Miami Beach is at this time of the year 100 degree weather. It has been very hot in this apartment. This lack of ventilation is in fact non compliance with the property rental codes of this city.

Iron and Board
There was an iron with no board

Coffee maker
Yes there was one with no coffee pot in it.

Dining - Comfy seating for 4

Nope. There is a round table with two chairs.

Wood Stove

Nope. There is a plastic 2 burner stove top that looks like the kind 3 year old girls play with when they play cooking with their friends and does not work. It turns on but does not even heat up water.

The property was Hazardous uninhabitable

Besides the bugs, lack of proper ventilation and proper sanitary conditions the bathroom seems to be falling apart. A few shower stall tiles are so broken I got bruises on my big toe. The structure that holds the towels is chipping. Metal shavings are constantly falling from it so as soon as I went to grab the towel I got cuts on my hand and my finger.
Due to my complaint, a Miami beach officer of Property Codes Compliance came to inspect the apartment on June 28th and left a notice demanding everything be repaired within seven days. The host ignored that notice too.

I sent homeaway quite a detailed explanation of all issues, photos and a video, everything documenting and supporting my claim. I am still waiting to hear from them.