I am not the worldliest of travelers. I have, however, rented many, many furnished apartments from coast to coast in the U.S.; this is the first time I have been driven to write a (albeit cautionary) review.

I have rented two units from Home Away. One unit is in the basement ('garden level') of 66 Mount Vernon Street, the other on Marlborough Street, from where I now write this review.

My experiences with Home Away:

The web page says "everything, from the stove to the window ledges, is fresh and clean." There is nothing 'fresh and clean' about these units. It was rather ironic that one window ledge at the Mount Vernon location had enough dirt on it for me to make a pile of dirt after I swept it out of the way with my hand! In the unit on Marlborough there is still a sizeable sticky splotch of an unidentified substance on the ledge that has attracted dust bunnies! I refuse to clean a landlord's property for them.

The landlord lives at Mount Vernon. With four floors at his disposal, he spent the majority of his time on the first; right on top of my head. He engaged in loud activities such as the rearrangement of furniture and renovations that involved the use of power tools. On one particular occasion the noise went on past nine at night.

At Marlborough, just after moving in during February there was unseasonably warm weather in which it rained on snow which was promptly frozen the next day. The ice was inches thick. Every other building on the street had the ice cleared from their walkways and stairs within twenty-four hours. Home Away took over three days. During which time the ice had melted sufficiently enough that an exhausted moth could have cleared the ice wIth a broken Q-tip in a few moments.

I have experienced no heat OR hot water for many hours on two occasions and, on two other occasions, no lighting in the common areas of multiple floors that lasted for as much as twenty-four hours.

The windows of my second floor unit do not lock. There is a fire escape right outside the windows. The windows do not stay open when I attempt to open them. There are no screens in the windows, which makes it difficult to get fresh air into the unit and keep insects out of the room.

The springs of the mattress stick into my back regardless of which way it s flipped. I have a strong dislike of being a landlord's QC guinea pig.

The front door of the building has pry bar marks in it; despite this the door does not lock on it s own. One must make sure they push it shut behind them.

The landlord is very active and noisy in this building as well. It seems like one is living in the environs of his minimalistic hobby area rather than he working in one's living area.

The units at 89 Marlborough are studios. This does not mean that one cannot suddenly find themselves living underneath four adults and 3-4 children aged 2-5! Tis a bit difficult to be studious while underneath a hovel!

Interestingly, both locations suffered from spider infestations; more so at Vernon but my first night at Marlborough there was a live spider in between the sheets. How absurd!

The name Home Away implies " away from home." It's more like, "We will take the aesthetics of a home -away." Good God!;)

I have been paying rent to this reptilian, bottom-line-fixated snob since October of '06. Now, he seeks an increase in rent and an arbitrary 3-month commitment through Dec. '07 to facilitate his financial interests; yet the condition of services I pay for remain as above. I rent short-term so that I can have that sort of flexibility. I find it unethical for one to change the terms of this type of arrangement this far into it. Basically, I am being forced out because the landlord wants to see a bigger check coughed-up in advance. Nice. Greed.

I typically don't look for the cheapest place I can find but recently it's become necessary. This was the least expensive furnished rental I have been able to find in Boston until I started looking for alternatives. I am paying $1450 for almost 350sq.ft; now increasing to $1550. I have now found other units in the area currently running $1200 to $1500. They'll probably be just as bad. I just don't like greedy people arbitrarily screwing with the terms. If I end up paying $1700 elsewhere -so be it. I am moving out of here as soon as I can. This guy certainly puts the 'rough' in Marlborough.

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