Our AirBNB in Kuala Lumpur

We were the inaugural tenants

I’m interrupting the recap of Europe with some more timely posts, so if you’re confused by the timeline, apologies! This is actually a somewhat realtime post.

We’ve been booking our accommodations at the last minute because we’ve been making our plans as we go. And it turns out that when you’re busy trying to take in the surroundings of your current location while also navigating normal stuff like grocery shopping and laundry, there’s not a lot of headspace leftover for researching your next travel destination, especially when you’re traveling quickly. Hence, last-minute planning.

So, we were in Singapore in mid-December and still needed a place in Kuala Lumpur, where we would be arriving in mere days. Turns out, there wasn’t a lot available that met our “needs”. We’re particular — okay, I’m a bit high maintenance; “I just want it the way I want it” (IYKYK), but really I know what helps us function well. In a pinch, we could’ve gotten a hotel for a few nights, but we were running low on clean clothes and needed access to a washing machine, and we didn’t want to be in a hotel for Christmas or moving into an apartment on Christmas Day. Plus, hotel rooms are too small for us, especially in parts of the world where they only accommodate two people (ahem, Europe and Asia); we do best with personal space. But we absolutely could’ve made a hotel work and I was never worried that we wouldn’t find a place to sleep.

Many of the apartments still available as I searched on AirBNB were new and so didn’t have ratings. I usually steer clear of these because who knows what you may get? Could be awesome; could be a disaster. But many of the ones with ratings didn’t have great reviews. So, what to do? If we wanted the space and amenities we were looking for, we were going to have to roll the dice. If it turned out to be awful, we could always find a different solution, unideal as that would be.

So I messaged the host of a “new” listing on the market (i.e., no reviews); I could see that they had other properties and those had decent reviews, so it was at least something to go on. The host was responsive (that’s another litmus test I use when booking places—host responsiveness), so I decided to give it a go. Compared to another property that I was also considering with pretty good ratings but a higher price point, the “new” one had nearly 3x the space. Yes, please!

I don’t know about you, but the stress I feel when I click Confirm is always acute, especially when booking last minute since there’s no cancelation option; you’re just out the money. But then I also breathe a sigh of relief because at least I know we’ve made a decision and will (hopefully) have a place to settle into upon arrival.

Day 0

The morning we were set to leave Singapore, I put the address of the AirBNB into Google just to confirm its location and it showed something nowhere near what I thought we had booked (based on what was advertised). My anxiety kicked in. I messaged the host and asked if the address was correct; I also asked for the name of the building (which the private transport we booked needed). The host gave me the name of the residence and when I put that into Google, it gave me the right location. I was relieved, but confused, so I asked the host to confirm the correct street address. They provided one different from what was listed in the AirBNB confirmation but that matched what I was expecting. I felt better but was still unsure why the wrong address had been provided initially; if I hadn’t double checked, we would’ve gone to the wrong location! Perhaps it was an oversight, but details matter.

When we arrived that evening I was still a bit unsure of what we’d find. The good news is that at first blush, we had made a good decision. The place was huge and had an awesome view. One entire side of the apartment was floor-to-ceiling windows, so it felt especially open. It had:

• 3 bedrooms, each with an en suite bathroom;

• a washing machine and dryer (out of the six prior apartments, only two had dryers);

• full kitchen (minus dishwasher); and

• access to a pool and small gym—not too shabby!

Our host took us on a tour of the building so we knew how to navigate it and then showed us the “secret” entrance to the mall, which provided direct access to the grocery store, coffee shops, and more. The metro was steps away, as well. I was amazed; it was all so convenient.

The one quirk he mentioned was that the gas hadn’t been turned on for the kitchen stove yet, but it should be on in 1-2 days. In the meantime, there was a portable induction burner he had plugged in for us. I could live with that, though it would’ve been nice if any issues had been disclosed ahead of time.

Speaking of issues, those arose as we settled in. We needed clean laundry, so I put a load of clothes in and tried to get the machine started. I’ve now successfully done laundry in six different washing machines across Europe, some in languages I can’t read, and everything worked out (minus the incident in Madrid where I turned a pink shirt into a gray one). The machine in KL was even in English, but for the life of me I couldn’t get it to work. It would start to spin, almost as if it was sensing the weight of the laundry, but then after a couple of minutes, it would stop and the “start/pause” button would flash red. I went through several cycles of this before I messaged our host.

With his help over WhatsApp, I troubleshooted various things but nothing worked. The clothes had gotten somewhere between damp and wet but the machine wasn’t washing them. So now I was stuck with wet, dirty laundry that was maybe going to mildew. Oy. I left the machine door ajar overnight and hoped for some sort of resolution the next day.

As we went to bed that night we discovered that there were only two outlets in the master bedroom and one was in the middle of the floor. Odd! Also, none of the beds had top sheets. Not a huge deal, as we’ve encountered that at other places, too, but the smaller beds (twins), of which we needed to use one, also didn’t have comforters. There were some brand new blankets still in their packaging, so we opened those, only to discover that they were on the skimpy side; they just covered the top of the bed but couldn’t tuck in at all. We made things work, since that was the option, but I was starting to wonder what other surprises we might find.

Day 1

In the morning I got into the shower and discovered within a few minutes that it didn't drain properly. The only way I could take a shower and not stand in an inch of water was to turn the water flow on really low, which worked but meant that my shower took a long time (I have thick hair!). I also couldn’t get hot water from the faucet in the kitchen, but I was able to use the electric kettle to supplement as I washed dishes.

So there were some quirks that needed resolution beyond the washing machine, but what house doesn’t have issues sometimes? I shared them with our host and crossed my fingers that he’d be open to addressing them.

He was and said he’d be over later that morning. I headed off to a gathering of worldschool families, while Chris and the girls stayed behind. While I was away, our AirBNB host took a look at the washing machine and deemed in need of replacement; he ordered a new one for delivery, which would take a day. He also cleaned out the drain for the shower, connected the hot water in the kitchen, and tested the dryer to make sure it worked; it did. Hooray!

When I got home, I had high hopes for everything. I hand washed some essential laundry since I knew I’d be able to put it in the dryer. I had held off the night before because hand washed laundry often takes two days to line dry indoors (it’s hard to wring out by hand). And since we didn’t yet have a drying rack, we would’ve needed to have hung clothes on the few hangers available and then draped the rest over furniture, which drives Chris crazy. Anyway, I was sweating up a storm by the time I finished the hand washing; it’s a lot of work!

I put half the clothes in the dryer, not wanting to press my luck, as I knew it would take quite some time for them to dry. Meanwhile, I went to do some dishes and discovered there still was no hot water in the kitchen. Hmm. I used the electric kettle again to get hot water. It was a pretty good solution, but I was confused; I thought it had been resolved. Was there a switch somewhere I needed to flip? Probably. Perhaps it was a lost in translation thing.

As I stood in the kitchen, I could feel the heat emanating from the dryer; wow, that thing gave off a lot of external heat! And the kitchen is the one room in the apartment without its own air-conditioning. Of course, the air flows in from the living room, but the dryer really made the kitchen hot. Oy. A drying rack was going to be necessary once the washing machine got replaced so we didn’t keep adding heat to the apartment. (The outside temp in KL is 75-85 degrees, with lots of humidity, so we were running the A/C almost continuously; no need for more heat!)

S wanted to bake Christmas cookies (ack, more heat in the kitchen!); we’ve made them every year since she was two years old (we used to have cookie parties when we lived in Colorado), and I made them as a kid with my mom and sister. It was a reasonable ask and a nice way to honor a tradition during a year when Christmas was otherwise going to look very different from the past.

Before we headed out to shop for the ingredients, though, I wanted to make sure the oven worked. I wasn’t going to buy all the ingredients (assuming we could even find them) if we had no way to bake them! Well, I turned the oven on and there was no heat. It almost felt comical at this point. I messaged our host to ask if the oven worked off natural gas like the stove, which still had no gas. He said no, it used electricity and that I had to flip a wall switch to turn it on. Ah, strange (to me), but okay. I found the switch but the oven still didn’t turn on. Hmm. S suggested turning on the oven timer and voila, that did that trick. I never would’ve thought to have done that. Why would the timer need to be on for the oven to work? To me that’s a strange design, but hey, I was happy the oven worked.

I let it run for a few minutes to make sure it would actually get hot. While I was waiting, the power in the kitchen suddenly went off. Doh! I was pretty sure I had tripped a breaker. Looks like we couldn’t run the dryer and the oven at the same time, LOL. I messaged our host again so he could guide me through where to find the fuse box and how to reset the breaker. While I was doing that, N came out and yelled, “The Internet stopped working!” as if the world was ending. Guess that was on the same circuit, whoops! I managed to get the fuse reset and everything came back (phew!). It took the Internet a few minutes to recover; N was very anxious in the meantime.

Suffice it to say, we learned a lot in just a few days about how this particular apartment works (and doesn't). I’m very glad we had a super responsive host; it would’ve been a very different experience were that not the case.

Day 2

The delivery window for the new washing machine was 10am-noon. A bit before noon I messaged our host to ask for an update; S and I want to go out and do some Christmas shopping (we needed the cookie ingredients!). He said to go ahead; he’d be up shortly with the machine. Fabulous. We took off and left Chris and Natasha at the apartment.

When we got back, the technician was just finishing putting everything back in its place. The washing machine worked! So did the hot water in the kitchen sink. I was so excited. I had only been able to hand wash small stuff like underwear and socks, a few t-shirts, and some thin shorts. Everything else was too bulky. It had been nine days since we did our last load of laundry in Venice. You might think: Why not just head down to the mall and buy some clothes? And to that I would say: We tried. We spent part of two days shopping in Singapore and the girls found nothing. I take that back; S found one pair of pants. But also, we still have limited space in our suitcases (which are full), so we can’t just go buying things.

Before I could even think about doing laundry, though, Chris mentioned our host saying something about not using the oven. Gah, we had just come home with ingredients! I messaged him and he said the oven alone trips the breaker; there was an issue with it and he needed someone to look at it. I asked him to keep me posted since we were planning to make our cookies. He said he could get us a portable oven and my first thought was: That’s a thing?! Apparently so! He said he could bring it the next day. Bless him.

With the squared, it was time to wash clothes! The hardest part was deciding what to put in first, since there was only so much room. While a load washed, S and I made the first batch of cookie dough. It was quite a process. After a while, I paused to put the laundry in the dryer and guess what? The dryer didn’t work. I mean, honestly, LOL. I knew it wasn’t broken because I had used it the day before, so something must’ve gotten switched off during the installation process — I just couldn’t figure out what. Oy vey.

Well, I needed a drying rack anyway, so I decided just to go down and get one. One of the perks of living above a mall is that everything is easy to obtain! So off I went to Mr. DIY. I had already seen a drying rack there when S and I popped in earlier, so I was able to buy one and get out quickly. It was even easier to get it “home” via elevator than it would’ve back in the US where I would’ve had to angle it in the back of the car.

I had S set it up while I moved the clean laundry to a chair (no basket!) and put a new load in. We resumed dough making once I hung the clothes up.

Day 3 (Christmas Eve)

Our host arrived around 10am with the portable oven. It sat right on the countertop like a toaster oven, only it was much bigger. Amazing! We’d definitely be able to bake cookies in there. We mentioned the dryer not working and he went over to check it. Indeed, a switch just needed to be flipped. Voila!

Now the stove just needed the gas connected and we still needed a solution for the shower/s. The master shower was still draining really slowly, resulting in a lake at the bottom. And N’s shower had a similar issue, plus she discovered that the floor actually slanted away from the drain. That was clearly a bigger issue that couldn’t be addressed during our stay. But hey, at least we could shower and had hot water. I was grateful for that!

Day 5 (day after Christmas)

Our host messaged us to say a technician would be coming by to connect the natural gas in the kitchen. Great! I was looking forward to freeing up some counter space by putting the portable stovetop away. Well, of course it didn’t pan out that way. (Haha, see what I did there? “Pan”?) The gas got connected, but we could only use one burner at a time; if we used more than one, it lowered the heat/BTUs and distributed it across all the burners that were on, meaning all could only have low heat. I couldn’t understand the technician well, but when I relayed this to our host, he said the gas pressure needed to be adjusted and would require a separate trip. Well, we were used to using the portable stove by now and were making it work, so whatever!

Day 6

The gas technician came back but there was effectively no change. The pressure was still low if we had more than one burner on. ::Shrug::

Day 7

N was trying to boil water for pasta on one of the gas burners since C was cooking eggs on the portable burner. About a minute in, the gas went out entirely. None of the burners would stay lit. So…portable stove for the win!

***

As of now there’s still no resolution for the stove, wall oven, or showers (drainage issue). Plus also now the main kitchen drawer won’t stay closed. It keeps springing open 2-3 inches and we catch ourselves on it, as it’s right in our workspace.

To be clear, these are all first world problems that can eventually be solved. And in the meantime, we are fed and sheltered and have more than what we need. But it has been an interesting experience, and I’m not sure we’d sign up to be inaugural tenants again unless that’s the only choice. Guess we need to start planning ahead a bit better!

What’s the most memorable/surprising experience you’ve had with accommodations while traveling?