PLEASE READ CAREFULLY BELOW BEFORE BOOKING THIS PLACE.
I had hundred Airbnb experiences both as host and guest.
This one with Gonzalo was certainly the worst of my life.
Let’s start about his attitude and conclude with the rented bedroom.
Leaving apart all the discussions we had about the fact that the English version did not match with the Portuguese so rules were not clear at all, I simply asked him in advance if my friend could leave the luggage for a couple of hours in my bedroom. He rudely denied it and was so rough that my friend didn’t want to leave it anymore and immediately left.
This was the weekend of Carnival in Rio, rent are crazy high and suddenly Gonzalo asked me to leave immediately the room without returning the money because he felt that his safety was put in serious danger (!!) by the presence of my best friend.
He told me he already rented the room to somebody else and he would need it available immediately. When I refused to leave the room I rented and paid, he started sending me serious threatens to use the force; he gave me the deadline of 3 PM to take my luggage with me or he said he would get into my room by “force”; he added he would have waited me with 3 “friends”; when I said to call the Police he answered that many of them were his “friends”; he concluded saying that “this is Rio”.
All this is written and documented, so luckily Airbnb has decided to return me the money, but it took me 3 days of talks with different operators to get it back.
What about the room? I slept there the first night before I was forced to leave. Well it’s super noisy, the window roller blind are broken so all the sun coming in at 6am, and it’s full of dust so avoid it for allergy. In addition, the air conditioning is just above your head so if you want use it consider all the cold directly on your face while sleeping.
My opinion is that this kind of persons will not improve the general reputation of Latin America where people live their lives with threatens. At least this experience allowed me to think how lucky I am to live so far from all these crazy things.
Good luck with your stay in Rio if you book this place!