Flying eggs, earwigs, and other delights of Anchorage Airbnb's

[sholio]

rachelmanija and I are planning to do a bit of road-tripping around southcentral Alaska this summer, and I'm looking up Airbnb's for us, since I'm familiar with the area. And that is how I found this amazing thing.

Alaska: come for the scenery! Stay for the OH MY GOD WHAT IS THAT ON THE WALL.



I have no explanation for these, but they look alarmingly 3D. I don't think I need that much realism in my flying egg wall murals.

Continues under the cut with some more pictures and also insect references.


This entire place has some of the weirdest decor I have ever seen. Half of it is painted like clouds, including this vertigo-inducing kitchen:



Just in case you ever wanted to experience the feeling of cooking while standing on a misty mountaintop in the Himalayas! Including the sense that you could fall off at any moment.



And everything else is painted black: walls, ceilings, fixtures.



Then we got into reading the reviews.

Make sure your expectations are LOW if you have any plan of staying there.

Not concerning at all.

Need to update restroom Information

... or that.

Samantha needs to fire her cleaning staff but other then that a good place to stay.

Definitely what you want to hear!

As other guests have noted linens/pillows severely needed updating, but as we were staying 19 days it was easy enough to go and purchase what we needed at Walmart.

There were earwigs accessing our unit from somewhere, climbing walls, on to us, in the kitchen sink, dropping from the ceiling. I've never even seen them in AK and we couldn't figure where they came from.

NOPE NOPE NOPE NOPE NOOOOOOPE.

I'll just leave you with this final view of the flying eggs, which makes it clear that they're attempting to escape, and who can blame them.

Comments

[sovay]

I'll just leave you with this final view of the flying eggs, which makes it clear that they're attempting to escape, and who can blame them.

I hope they make it.

[sholio]

I hope they make it.

I sort of do and sort of don't, because the idea of having them flying around unsupervised is also worrying.

[sovay]

I sort of do and sort of don't, because the idea of having them flying around unsupervised is also worrying.

They're probably just looking for somewhere to hatch. I mean, does that look like a suitable juvenile-rearing environment?

[sholio]

A very reasonable point.

[frith_in_thorns]

They're flying to attack pregnant people!!

[sholio]

I KNEW THEY WERE UP TO NO GOOD!

[ivyfic]

I SAW YOUR ICON TODAY.

[sholio]

Ahahaha, really?? AWESOME! Where? :DDD

[ivyfic]

It's an image of the Lewis chessman. I was at the British Museum.

[sholio]

Oh yeah, sorry, my question was where you saw them. :D I love the Lewis Chessmen and have even considered buying a replica set - though I really don't play chess enough for it to be worth it. (But WOULD I if I had these guys to play it with?!)

[sartorias]

Cue jaw meeting floor.

Also, eeeeew!

[sholio]

Normally I'm all for people taking a place and making it their own, and to be fair if I went over to someone's house and it was like this it's not like I'd tell them I thought it was terrible, but I do draw the line at earwigs.

[sartorias]

YUP.

[madripoor_rose]

Earwigs and cleaning issues are a big NO but I gotta admit....if I bought a place to rent as a airbnb I'd probably lean into the Weird Décor Choices just for the hell of it.

[sholio]

I actually love places that are bright and bizarre, but this one is bizarre in all the wrong ways! And also, earwigs.

[scioscribe]

I have so many questions for whoever owns this house. ("What, pray tell, the fuck?" would obviously be one of them.) But I have to admit, it's hilarious to me that they committed so fully to the cloud paintings, which must have been either a pain to do themselves or expensive to have done, while apparently deciding that nah, we're not going to update this kitchen or WASH THE SHEETS.

[sholio]

HAHAHA, yes, that, and also the fact that they clearly do have an understanding of design and color - for example, the splashes of pink in the living room that go with the splashes of pink on the bedspreads; there really are only 3 or 4 main colors and primary design elements in the entire place. And yet, the ones they chose to go with are such an unbelievably weird juxtaposition! It wouldn't have this utterly bizarre quality if they had just thrown everything against the wall (so to speak) and had a wild mismatch of furniture and styles. It's the sense of very careful planning based on utterly bonkers design principles that really sells it.

... but yeah, that combined with their inability to hire a competent cleaning person or get an exterminator for the BUG PROBLEM is definitely ... yeaaaaaup.

One of the other condos in this particular group was one of my other picks for a place to stay. Bullet dodged.

[rionaleonhart]

This entire entry is magnificent, particularly the final line. I love the flying eggs!

[sholio]

Heee, thank you! :D The flying eggs are certainly a choice. XD I wonder if there's a story there, or if the owner just likes eggs.

[magistrate]

THIS IS NOT WHERE I EXPECTED TO SEE YOU HOW LONG HAVE YOU TWO BEEN DREAMWIDTH FRIENDS AND HOW MANY BIZARRE MASSIVE WRITING PROJECTS ARE Y'ALL GOING TO TRIP ME INTO

[rionaleonhart]

SURPRISE

I'm just an innocent subscriber; you're safe! Probably.

[philomytha]

They look like someone heard of the Snitch and decided they should fly in flocks...

I like the clouds, though. Not in my own house, but to stay for a few days? Why not

[schneefink]

I thought of snitches too. Clearly escaping from Quidditch games in the mountains. Good luck ever finishing that game...

The cloud walls alone would be one thing, but in combination with that furniture and the rest of it it is very, hm, odd ^^ Very strange room temperature.

[oracne]

All righty then.

[darjeeling]

That... sure is a house....

[michelel72]

Yeah, they're definitely making a break for the door. Flee! Flee!

[leesa_perrie]

The reviews would totally put me off, and that decor is... interesting!!!

But hey, what can I say? I've always wanted a spare room that I could paint black with galaxies, nebulas and stars on the walls, ceilings and floor - with model spaceships hanging from the ceiling. No furniture, just a space room!!! Though I don't think I'd ever actually do it... well, maybe not! :D

[lunabee34]

So you booked a room, right?

LOL

[sholio]

Who WOULDN'T?!!

[helen_keeble]

LOLOLOLOLOL

[magistrate]

I've got to admit, I probably would not mind a kitchen that made me feel like I was cooking on top of the Himalayas. I mean... I wouldn't want it to be my kitchen, but I wouldn't mind visiting. (Please write the fic where Danny somehow ends up in this kitchen, trying valiantly to cook something, and talking about how at least they don't actually have to worry about windchill or the Hand or whatever.)

Earwigs falling randomly from the ceiling sounds horrifying, though. ...though at least they're not the worst bugs to randomly find their way there. At least they're not house centipedes.

[sholio]

We lived in an apartment that had centipedes when I was a kid! That was memorably horrifying. (They used to crawl out of the plumbing. UGH UGH UGH.)

(Please write the fic where Danny somehow ends up in this kitchen, trying valiantly to cook something, and talking about how at least they don't actually have to worry about windchill or the Hand or whatever.)

LOLOLOL and probably with stories about how he once made a fire on a rock out of two coals and a twig in -90 degree windchill to cook some bugs and DANNY PLEASE STOP.

[rachelmanija]

This place is amazing and so is your writeup.

I don't think I need that much realism in my flying egg wall murals.

I'll just leave you with this final view of the flying eggs, which makes it clear that they're attempting to escape, and who can blame them.

LOLOLOLOL.

[sholio]

Even if I would have been willing to put up with the rest of it, they definitely lost me at "earwigs falling from the ceiling."

[rachelmanija]

That's even worse than scorpions in the sink!

[timespirt]

I could probably get used to the walls, the bugs they can keep. I hate those damn things...yuk.

[cornerofmadness]

This is the sort of thing that needs to be put in a story. The flying egg art intrigues me. I mean WHY?

[st_aurafina]

Oh, no, earwigs? I don't like those things.

The eggs are kinda fun in a trippy way? But no, I think that place is best avoided.

[recessional]

. . . . not to fandom hack a post but clearly the only explanation here is that an Avatar of the Corruption and an Avatar of the Vast are luring people into that AirBnB for shared sacrifice purposes.

[sholio]

Feel free to borrow this AirBnB for vaguely-Lovecraftian-horror purposes as desired. :D

[recessional]

I have definitely shared it with the small TMA server I'm on and we have determined that two other Fears are also involved, there being NO CARBON MONOXIDE DETECTOR and also it being Alaska and thus full of potential to send people out to be hunted down in woods somewhere (even if starting in Anchorage).

[abyssinia]

I gotta admit part of me loves the paint job in the kitchen. The rest...um...

[sushiflop]

ah, home. Just the kind of weirdness I'd expect.