The experience with this apartment was one of the worst I have ever had. Avoid this host and don’t book this apartment.
Here a summary of what happened:
We booked the place on Friday, August 13th and got the confirmation at 7:57 PM from the host that he received our request.

As we travelled by car from Switzerland, our children were tired and wanted to move on asap.
Therefore I immediately replied to the host (Joffrey) and informed him that my children are tired and that we would like to soon enter the apartment.

It took him till 9:16pm, which is one hour and 20 minutes later, to send me a simple confirmation and send me the code to enter the place. I had to send him several reminders and make a couple of calls to finally get that reply.

I went to the building but could not the enter the apartment after passing the main door, as I also needed a key and a magnetic batch.

So I called him back again and he informed me that I have to pick it up in a hotel two blocks away. He then also gave me another 3rd code so that I could pick up the key at the hotel.

I took the car drove to the hotel with the family, gave them the code and got the key.
Then, I drove back with my family and we entered the building. What I happened then was really surprising.

Via messaging services the host gave me a 12 step process on how to get to the apartment. Only the idea to give you 12 step instruction to enter an AirBnB apartment should already be a clear message that something is wrong.

Here a short description how that went:
- First you had to enter the main door with a code.
- Then you had to enter a second door with a magnetic batch.
- Then you had to enter a third door with another code.
- Then you had to walk on a long and scary passage to the backside of the house.
- After that you had to take a left to go and even longer poorly illuminated passage, and with lots of garbage containers on the left side, to reach a metallic door that looked more like a prison door. No windows at all times.
- To enter that metallic door you had to enter another code to finally reach a staircase.
- That staircase was again poorly illuminated, very dirty and with spider cobwebs and made out of worn off wood.
- Climbing up in 3-4 stories you finally reached the apartment.
- The door was old, painted with various colors from various times. Totally uninviting.
- Once we entered the apartment there was even a big garbage bag behind the entrance door that was not removed yet.
- Also their apartment was really smelly.

Our children refused to even climb up the stairs because they were scared of the whole passage through the poorly illuminated, dirty and windowless hallway at the backside of the house. They started to cry and got really mad at me. They felt very unsafe at that place.

We left then the house and I called the host and explained him our experience. He was unfriendly and rude and said that every customer is very happy with this apartment and he has no clue why we are not happy. I ask him if he has ever taken that passage to the apartment himself and he told me “NO”.

As my children refused to go back to that house, I asked him for a refund. He refused and said they don’t pay back any money. My wife also called him and he told her the same. All the time he behaved arrogantly and with very little care about our negative experience.

My wife and I brought our children to a cafe and went back to take a video of the whole way from the main door to the apartment just for you to see what this host is expecting an Airbnb customer to go through.

We then had to find another place to stay. My children refused any other place booked through Airbnb and said it has to be a hotel from our reputable chain. That’s why i booked two rooms at the Novotel.

The children finally could go to bed at 11:30pm.

The host never refunded me my money. As a result the two nights costed me $1600.

Airbnb needs to make sure that such hosts no longer can put Airbnb customers in such a traumatic and stressful situation.