I have stayed in many Airbnb’s over the years and I’ve never before felt compelled to write a review of a stay. I can honestly say that my stay in this particular location was one of the worst travel experiences of my life. My family and I were travelling with another family (a total of 9 of us) to Lyon for the World Cup Soccer Tournament. I understand that we were in town at one of the busiest times ever in Lyon however even keeping that in mind, this was a terrible experience.

This appears to be an apartment where the host typically lives but moves out when they’re fortunate enough to find someone to rent the place.

The trip started with a request from the host that we bring our own towels. This is unusual for a rental but unacceptable when towels are specifically listed as an item provided by the host. We asked the host to provide towels and he agreed to. When we arrived there were 9 bath towels and nothing else except for some well soiled hand towels hanging up in the bathroom. The bathroom is divided into sink/shower in one room and toilet in the other. There was a light in the toilet room, however it was so dim, that we needed a flashlight to see in that space in fact, on or off was exactly the same.

Upon arrival we were told that we had to make our own beds. Again, unusual, but we complied. Also, when we counted, we were one bed short. When I inquired, I was told to take one of the mattresses from another bed (for us to bring down from the top bunk of a bunk bed) and place it on the floor and voila, an extra bed!

As I mentioned, the place is someone’s full time home, however that is not noted on the listing. There were personal belongings everywhere including food and beverages in the fridge… I was also EXTREMELY DIRTY. I have pictures of the filth but it doesn’t appear that I can include those in the review. The kitchen and bathroom sinks were brown. The shower curtain was untouchable, the paint was peeling in many places, there were dirty ashtrays, etc… absolutely disgusting – the entire group refused to eat there.

Next, the listing stated that sleeping in the living room was expected. The only problem is that there are no curtains in the living room and there is an exterior light directly outside one of the windows lighting up the entire room all night (again I have pictures but cannot post).

There were also a couple of safety issues:
1) There were exposed wires in the shower part of the bathroom which left us concerned
2) There was rat poison loose on the floor of one of the bedrooms which would have been quite concerning if we had young children
3) The power went out 4-5 times each day – at first I called the landlord but got tired of asking him to fix, so I simply unplugged appliances and re-set the power until it worked.

As our stay was 6 nights and there was a major sporting event in town, we couldn’t find another place to stay or we would have moved and simply eaten the cost, that’s how bad it was. So instead we literally left town for 2 days and stayed somewhere else just so we could feel clean. One of our kids had just returned from a backpacking trip and asked to return to the woods “because it was cleaner”

This was a terrible experience and I would recommend avoiding at all costs.