Kasa The Addison San Francisco — Hotel in San Francisco

Our two week stay felt like months and I feel strongly enough to share the experience so that others looking for short-term (but longer than a hotel) accom in SF can decide wisely about this property.||||The nice website, smooth booking and modern "no-contact" check-in service experience was attractive to us and the price point for a location in Pac Heights sealed the deal. Unfortunately our hearts sank when we entered the room and continued to sink throughout the stay. Here are the issues we encountered...||||The room had one usable window and it looked directly into a grey wall about 2 feet away. It was not possible to know whether it was sunny or wet outside. (The second small window looked directly into the neighboring room, so blinds remained closed until I purchased a temporary adhesive frosted film so it could let some more marginal light into the gloomy den).||||The bathroom has half a door. A semi-opaque glass door. A glass door that doesn't close properly. Basically every toilet activity is a group activity. ||||The toilet is the shower is the toilet. If you shower, the entire bathroom (closet sized) floor remains wet for hours. Then this water gets dirty and moves through the apartment. We purchased an elevated bamboo foot towel, which needs to be standard with the room to alleviate some of the design deficiency here.||||The room was the noisiest I have been in, shockingly so. You can hear and understand your neighbors even if they are just talking, straight through the walls. Overhead noise is terrible. Corridor noise is made worse because the room door itself is not hung straight and sound and light enter freely from the corridor. ||||The touch pads on the doors sort-of work, after a lot of tapping randomly, and eventually the screen responds. Low quality.||||The bed was criminal. It squeaked with every movement. The bedding was 100% polyester and, upon contact with skin, instantly starts to sweat. We ended up washing bedding most days just to try and stay on top of this, but simply unacceptable to put such rubbish on a bed.||||No A/C or air ventilation. The room was always stuffy and stagnant, even with the window open. It stayed around 73 all the time.||||When toilet paper ran out, it could not be replaced by Kasa - we had to source our own.||||Internet was patchy - video calls from the room would break up a lot. ||||Now, having been very critical overall, I do recognize that the tiny space was furnished thoughtfully and space efficiency gained in some innovative ways. I kept saying "it's like Tokyo" as a coping mechanism. ||||Location is awesome - so much within walking distance - shops, food, parks, views. Brilliant.||||But overall, this is a massive miss and simply not fit for purpose. Needs a...

UPDATE 5.24.22: WE HAD A FAR MORE SATISFACTORY EXPERIENCE DURING A SECOND 10-DAY STAY IN MAY AS COMPARED TO OUR FIRST VISIT. THE "KASA KINKS" NOTED BELOW WERE NOT AN ISSUE THIS TRIP AND WE ARE HAPPY TO INCREASE OUR RATING FROM 3 STARS TO 5 STARS.

Unfortunately, we experienced issues during our first stay at The Addison in early April. The “Kasa Kinks” as we unaffectionately referred to the reoccurring ones: digital keypads that made it physically impossible to lock the door and a weird grinding noise coming from a refrigerator.

But we will definitely be giving the Addison a second chance since we ultimately felt our grievances were acknowledged (though not completely resolved) and we were fairly compensated for our negative experiences. The property is newly renovated and very clean, equipped with a well appointed kitchen and washer/dryer. The location and value are excellent and hopefully the above mentioned items have already been addressed and removed from the punch list.

We stayed in three units over 10 days. The door on the fourth, our original room reservation, could not be immediately fixed so we were given a significantly smaller room for the first two nights.

We were disappointed with the poor response time from the virtual front desk and their reliance on auto messages. After two nights we wanted to change hotels since we were told there were no other units available. After multiple attempts to reach a human being, we finally heard from Kasa at 11:50pm one evening calling to say there was another room available to move into but we would have to move again after four nights.

The lock on the door of the last room also needed to be fixed and when it was done properly, we felt secure about leaving our belongings inside but the refrigerator issue in this room was never resolved. We ended up shutting down the refrigerator’s circuit breaker each night before going to sleep and kept our fingers crossed that the food inside would not spoil.

Our one human connection - on site manager Sydney - was a shining light and we were always relieved when we saw her in person. She was so kind and immediately learned our names. She made an effort to understand the rooms’ issues, listened and forwarded to management the audio tape we had made of the grinding noise, replaced a missing TV remote, even quickly supplying us with a full length mirror when she found out there was none in the room. And about two-thirds into our stay, Chuck, the Senior Guest Experience Specialist contacted us to assure our complaints were being heard and authorized...

Stayed at Kasa the Addison for 3 weeks. Overall a good experience, with some initial kinks ironed out very quickly by the responsive (virtual) staff. All in all, a great example of someone trying something a bit new and getting it mostly right.

Pros: Location - just two blocks from bustling Fillmore. Great access to bus system. One block from Lafayette Park. Most importantly, it's relatively safe for a solo female traveler. I quite liked having to walk up a hill after a meal. Modern - nice, if somewhat cheap, decor, clever remodel of an old multi-unit building. Liked the keypads and the self-check-in. THE BED deserves a call-out all of its own. Felt like a dream. Staff - super responsive, but you don't see anyone unless there's an issue. They were polite, capable, and efficient. Washer/dryer combo - so helpful for longer stays! Laundry pods included! Nicely kitted out - everything you need, including dishwasher pods, cutlery, etc. Back garden - a bit too cold to really hang out there (even in August!), but on a sunny afternoon, it felt lovely to sit on the lovely furniture. Blackout shades on the windows. Neighbourhood was relatively quiet, but not the folks directly above me.

Cons: The entire bathroom IS the shower stall. Even the door to the bathroom is a glass shower door. I live in Europe, where this is common, but it would've been great to enjoy a bathroom that's more American-sized. Furniture already showing signs of wear. Shelves in bathroom rusting already from constant exposure to spray. Front of a drawer fell off when I opened the drawer as the particleboard had frayed. Bowls and plates showing a lot of use. No closets. You'll have to hang your clothes on an open wardrobe-type piece of furniture. No safe for valuables. Cleaning could be more thorough: for the first and last nights, my teenage son was with me. Sofa was already a bit stained around the cushions, and it was filthy once we lifted the cushions to open the sofabed. A silverfish in one of the glasses. But they sent someone to clean it up straightaway and lent me a vacuum cleaner...