Poolside oasis - Sydney

This is a lovely house with loads of space and an amazing back deck overlooking the pool and the stunning national park behind. The top floor with the deck is where you will stay, and the lower story is rented. The top floor is very private, has a large kitchen, and has a well appointed outdoor kitchen. Great place to stay.

The property itself was very nice, but the guests felt it was overpriced for what it was. We paid around $900 per night, which could have been justifiable for a whole property with pool access, but neither of these were the case, noting you only get access to the upstairs half of the house. The alarming downside to this property was that the booking was held hostage on the day. The owners did not communicate directly with me, but through someone called Usha who emailed me on the morning of the stay to ask that a $1000 deposit be paid, which wasn't mentioned anywhere in the listing. I was asked to pay it directly into a bank account, and told that property access would not be granted until it was paid. Their response times while I contested both the deposit itself and the requested means of payment this were slow, creating a stressful and difficult afternoon during which they eventually relented. Aside from the inappropriateness of this, this is an exorbitant amount for a deposit. For everyone - DO NOT PAY ANY MONEY DIRECTLY INTO A HOST'S BANK ACCOUNT Booking.com says that it handles all property payments. Bank transfers cannot be recovered if paid and are often requested by scammers who have accessed a host's account. This practice should not be continued or supported because it makes it harder to distinguish genuine hosts from scammers. In fairness to Usha, he/she seemed to genuinely think that the deposit was mentioned on the listing, so it may be that it was indeed removed at some point without them realising, and this was all an innocent misunderstanding. In the circumstances though, and given we were writing to each other at 2pm on the day of check in to negotiate access to the property, it felt like they were having us on. I didn't stay in or see the property myself and only handled the booking and communication, but repeat below what the guests told me. Of the six beds noted on the listing, only four were provided.