I have given appropriate notice of the time of my arrival with two emails. I arrived at 12.30 pm and the apartment was yet not ready. I was extremely tired after a long journey but I waited that the person I met (not Nicolas, but her friend Lucrezia who is the real owner of the place) finished cleaning it. I received the keys only 50 minutes later, and the apartment was still not completely ready.
The property is situated completely below the floor level, and among other things I regretfully noticed:
-a widespread humidity ascensional by capillarity, on the perimeter walls made clear by the detachment of the painting plaster;
-a methacrylate plate incorporates the toilet making it ABSOLUTELY non-functional, it is indeed necessary to clean and sanitize before and after using the mentioned plate, in order to avoid contact with previous traces of urine;
-an unsafe and slippery shower tray, since made with irregular polished slabs of marble, the same slabs also distributed throughout the house;
-between one area and the other the only divisions were curtains that creatde anything but privacy especially for the area of the toilet;
-one of the four chairs could not be used because the seat was broken.
After thousands of miles of flight and being in Brussels for a holiday, I could have tried not to complain about any of this. But it was absolutely IMPOSSIBLE to accept (finding out only at 9.30 pm) the condition of the bed with dirty sweaty pillows smelling rancid, covered in filthy dirty pillowcases with an unbearable smell, combined with one (1) sheet dirty of mixed organic stains together with an embarrassing shocking presence of pubic hair also on the duvet (that was left without any coverage sheet).
After several phone calls because Lucrezia had disappeared, Nicolas at 10:30 pm proceeded to give me a pair of sheets and pillowcases and remake the bed clumsily, leaving the remaining two pillows without pillowcases and the dirty sheets on display right off the blind on the floor beside the bed.
Due to an obvious lack of communication between the two, Lucrezia has seen fit to suddently wake me up, repeatedly knocking several times on the downstairs shutters between 11pm & 12am (she had to insist since there are no bells in the apartment and being the area close to a railway station far tfrom being quiet).
I then tried to sleep for a few hours, without any success, on a chair in wood and rope unpadded and free of pillows.
The next day, after communicating to Nicolas & Lucrezia (who were previously notified by telephone and text messages) these intolerable deficiences, I left that flophouse. Of course I had to fall back on a last minute hotel.
My opinion is therefore much more than EXTREMELY NEGATIVE, because of an intrusive invasive hospitality, lacking any normal indispensable criteria of hygiene and health.
I wonder how airbnb could have selected this apartment!! Instead of apologizing they said our behaviour was questionable!