We were recently guests in a nice house with a very friendly hostess. The house was advertised as having a/c. When we checked in on Friday night the owner apologized that the a/c was not working well. Unfortunately, this was during two of the hottest days of the year so far. She and I had specifically discussed the pending heatwave prior to the trip. She said that she didn't know why it wasn't working and said it had been recently serviced. She said that she was going to try to have looked at the next day (Saturday). She said that there were fans in the bedrooms, and we could open windows at night. Unfortunately, it was very uncomfortable, and my family members were pretty unhappy with me since I had chosen the property! She later said that she had not been able to schedule a technician, as I had asked her to do both verbally and via text. Had I known about the a/c problem beforehand we would have stayed somewhere else. We were in town for a family funeral event and had two terrible nights of sleep. The situation is especially frustrating because 1) she knew about the heatwave prior to the trip, 2) she lives next door and could easily have checked to be sure it was working properly, 3) if she had checked it a few days prior to our arrival, she could have time to schedule a tech to fix it, and, 4) I later saw that the outdoor compressor unit was 30 years old. Aside from the a/c issue, she and the house were fine. She was apologetic and gracious.
I strongly feel that she owes us a partial refund. I like the fact that another owner in the forum proactively offered a refund in the same situation. After reading these forums it seems that a 25-50% refund is reasonable. I've asked for a 25% refund and am waiting for her response. If she wasn't such a nice person, I would probably have asked for more. I would be curious to get thoughts from the community on this.