Villa Dubois Guest House — Hotel in Chicago

Stayed here on a whim from choosing it on Expedia. I didn’t recognize the name and didn’t realize it was more of an Airbnb type place and not a hotel so I was pretty confused upon finding the address. Things got even more confusing for me because the Villa Dubois sign is on the bottom floor door. When I’d went through the check in instructions I was given a door code. I’d tried that code and nada. I texted the number on the door and I was greeted fairly soon, thank goodness my friend who drove me had the time to sit and wait with me because it was quite chilly out and I was not prepared for that. After much confusion on the door code and where I was actually supposed to be, I thought the main door was where I was supposed to go in because they kept saying my room was on the 3rd floor. There are stairs outside leading up to another door but I thought that was no affiliation with them since there was no sign stating such or even that it was the entrance to 2nd and 3rd floor doors! As there is a main bottom floor, a second and a third each with 3 bedrooms, a kitchen and seating are. After getting it all figured out and my things upstairs in my room things went pretty smoothly. I was “planning” on only staying a night but things got messy with where I was going from there, the weather decided to storm and not be nice a couple days so I wound up renewing my stay for a week. There were a couple snags in doing so each day as I renewed some nights and my dad renewed others. Money was taken as a deposit I wasn’t even aware was needed and then had not enough left over for the actual stay. They helped work around everything and made everything as smooth as possible. Everything was pretty great with my stay at the house although every night but the first night the other guests would come in around 9/10pm and then start cooking. Now I don’t mind that, we all have to eat, however, the other guests were rude and inconsiderate as all get out. Banging the pots and pants, slamming cabinet doors shut, setting the smoke detectors off not once but twice, loud talking (the entire house is hardwood so everything echos) and talking on the phone on speaker in common areas until 1-2am. I’m a night owl myself but those nights I needed to get rest and get up early and was either woken up multiple times by them or woken up and then had to stay awake because going back to sleep was damn near impossible! I know the owners can’t do much about it now but as a solo female, it was very uncomfortable otherwise I would have said something myself. Then again at 6-7am they’d be up moving around, taking showers blasting music and everything else. Very annoying and not so quiet by any means. During the day it was pretty quiet because it was mainly just me there for the most part. Sorry for the messy bed picture, it was the only one I’d taken for reference. As the days went on, the prices fluctuated which I expected but my first night I paid only a little over $100 which was perfect. Then it went up little by little and then by the weekend they wanted almost $200. It’s near 35th and MLK. For an Airbnb I can kind of understand but at the same time I can’t for that type of situation/location. If you wanted anything besides water to drink or anything to eat, you had to buy it yourself. There wasn’t anything complimentary by any means, other than the loud guests. The first night, the other guests had made dinner and offered me a plate of an oriental style soup’ish type of dish and it was amazing! If only the other guests had been so considerate as to not be as noisy and loud. All in all if I had to I’d stay there again but it’s also very far south to where I usually stay. If Airbnb type is your groove then I say go for it. There’s a Marianos a 5 minute walk to the SE and a Jewel Osco about a 10 minute walk NE, along with a couple fast food places scattered along the way. With the access codes on front doors and secure locks on room doors I...

*DO NOT GO HERE - I STAYED ONE NIGHT AND THEY WILL SLAP FEE AFTER FEE ONCE YOU'VE RESERVED THE ROOM.

*CAMERAS IN LIVING ROOM, KITCHEN, AND HALLWAY. *UNSAFE AREA AT NIGHT - NEAR GARFIELD PARK, IL. *IF YOU BOOK FOR YOURSELF AND BRING A GUEST WITH YOU WITHOUT MARKING AS 2 GUESTS, THEY WILL CHARGE YOU A FEE. *NO GUESTS ALLOWED IN THE HOUSE. PERIOD. THEY WON'T LET YOU IN. *STRICT RULES FOR CHECK IN - CHECK OUT *SHARED BATHROOM *NO TELEVISION AT ALL *NO BREAKFAST

I currently travel for work and was in a pinch on a Friday. I look up online for a hotel to stay at. We find this room online for $80 and reserve it for the day.

BIG MISTAKE.

The second you book the room, you are notified how there are additional fees. The room turned into a $250 NIGHT. They slap on the additional $100 safety deposit (which is the norm, don't like it, but it's common.) Oh, they decide to then mention how there are cameras on the facility. I don't mind cameras, but I do when I'm paying $250+ for a shared bathroom and the camera is in the hallway. I was unable to become comfortable when I was outside my room.

You have to walk up to their door and text a number. You do not talk to anyone at all. NO REAL PEOPLE. You get the text with confirmations and message someone. You have to take a photo of your id and your credit card. We were skeptical of doing this, but YOU CANNOT CANCEL YOUR RESERVATION. 100% NO REFUNDS....so we had to continue the process.

Yes, the place looks nice on the inside. The living room, kitchen, and hallways are all placed with cameras. Which is fine - security - but not worth the price I paid of $250. There are no amnesties. No pool, no gym, just shared living room, kitchen, AND SHARED BATHROOM.

The argument is that they are 3 miles from downtown. I have traveled through different parts of the city and this area is not safe at night. For the first time in my life traveling, I did not feel safe going out. I didn't even want to grub hub. The surrounding area had a large response of shootings and murders. I have the Citizen app - which I use since I have worked Uber/Lyft - and I have never encountered so many shootings. LESS THAN .3 miles of me was a quadruple shooting, reports of group of men armed with guns and a knife in the area.

THIS PLACE IS A SCAM.

Luckily the room was placed under a different name because I do not feel safe at all with this person having my notification. After a bad review, they tried to charge our card not more than 5 days past our check out stating they will be charging a $200 "incidental fee". We took a picture of our home. We even waited on putting in a review because we would have our safety deposit withheld despite pictures right after leaving showing we didn't touch a thing.

If you have children - DO NOT GO HERE.

There are plenty of reviews out there stating the same as I have said. You will have to fight this person for your money back. Never ever again will I go here.

For the cost and headache we ended up having to endure because of this place, we much would have rather spent an extra few dollars to be in downtown Chicago near the Riverwalk AND FEEL...

TLDR: Wife and I got locked INSIDE our room, stuck for around 3 hours until the locksmith that WE had to call and pay for got us out. Company has not yet reimbursed us for the locksmith. Horrible communication, owners have refused to reimburse us.

My wife and I booked a room at the Villa Dubois Guest House for one night before we flew out of Midway for our honeymoon.

We locked our room when we went to bed. When my wife woke up to use the bathroom an hour or so later, the door would not unlock. After trying for a few minutes, we texted the owners (because they don’t do phone calls for some reason), and they tried contacting people to come help. Called and texted the “emergency” phone number listed on the back of our room’s door, and the calls went straight to voicemail and the texts went unanswered. The owners told me to ”try the card thing to open the door. That's how our other guest was able to open the door by himself in our other guesthouse before.” In other words, this was not the first time someone has had issues with their locks. Credit card trick didn’t work.

Texted the owners and told them to call a locksmith. They said they were “calling around already.” Frustrated, I called a locksmith myself, and had success one my first call. Not sure why the owners needed to “call around”. Informed the owner that I had booked a locksmith myself, they said “We will let the manager know. Send a copy of the receipt.”

After waiting for the locksmith to get there and paying $575 out of our own pockets for the emergency service, we were finally able to get out of our room, about 3 hours after informing the owners we were stuck inside our room. We decided to leave for the airport at that time, much earlier than we needed, as we no longer felt comfortable or safe a the Villa Dubois.

I sent the Villa Dubois Guest House an email with the receipt and a request to not only reimburse us for the locksmith but to also refund our stay. I still have not received an email back from them and text messages have gone unanswered. UPDATE: I finally received a response after I left this review. The response: a screenshot of my review. They have refused to reimburse us for the locksmith services.

Not only was being locked inside of our room an annoyance and extreme inconvenience, but could have been tragic in the event of an emergency such as a fire in the building or if we had a medical emergency (injury, panic attack, heart attack, etc.). We are very lucky that the closest we were to an emergency was needing to use the bathroom very badly by the time the whole...