This was our first Airbnb booking and sad to say, it was a nightmare. This apartment is dangerous for children or even adults if you are not careful moving around.
During the stay, our 18- month daughter was walking down the narrow hallway of the apartment when her hand brushed the IKEA mirror that was hung on the wall,and the mirror came crashing down on her. We rushed her to the Emergency and she ended up in surgery ,getting 4 stitches on her head and had to be under observation for 48 hours. The whole experience was traumatic for us as parents- we were truly terrified of what had happened to our child.
The apartment is at an excellent location with everything close, however these are the issues we found with the space-
1) Badly installed mirror- The IKEA mirror was installed incorrectly on the hallway wall- the mirror frame has 4 brackets on it (that ensures it stays in place)- however it was hung on only 2 of them( there were only 2 screws on the walls, whereas there should have been 2 more to make sure the installing is secure). Moreover the mirror initially seemed to be hanging off the edge, instead of the brackets, which might have been why it came off so easily.
After getting our child stitched up- We tried to explain to the host that the mirror was not hung correctly and that is why it fell off - but she kept refusing to admit it. We tried to tell her that my 18 month old is not strong enough to move a tall mirror( which is around 5' by 1', easily weighing over 25 pounds), but she would not even apologize for what happened.
2) Other issues with the apartment After the mirror falling off, we looked at the rest of the apartment and found there were IKEA cupboards that are not fastened to the wall that would easily topple- this is also a hazard. There was also the issue of the pull-out bed which always had one part under it always fall off( which we had to remove the mattress and push it back in place- sometimes multiple times in the night,disturbing our sleep). We mentioned the issue of the bed to the Host who insisted again this was a problem with us not pulling the bed out correctly.
The listing on Airbnb does not mention that it was unsafe for kids. The fact that this host was listed as a "Superhost" made us think she was verified and everything in her space would be as listed, and she would be considerate when renting it to a family with a little child.The initial interaction we had about the host was good, however we were disappointed in how she handled the whole incident. We would hate for another family to go through what we...