We would not recommend this listing to anyone. We chose Frank’s listing as it was advertised to have a kitchen. This was important as we couldn’t afford to eat out every day. When we arrived the kitchen was filthy and at the time Frank acknowledged this and joked about how he should clean it. As well as this the bathroom was quite dirty. The kitchen however was never cleaned once, the sink was constantly filled to the brim with dirty dishes to the point that it was unusable. There were rotting vegetables on the counter which attracted fruit flys. When we opened the oven it had used tinfoil that had clearly been there for a long time, the knobs were sticky and the hob had no extractor fan which meant the kitchen filled up with steam very quickly. The fridge also had rotting vegetables and a terrible smell.
On one morning of our visit, my friend with whom I was staying was in our room in the apartment while I was out. Frank called from the hall so she went out and he mentioned to her that the toilet was blocked. At his request she went and looked at it. The toilet was flushing slowly. Frank then accused her of using feminine products to block the toilet. He pointed and shouted and got her to use the brush to try unblock the toilet despite her having said no such incident had occurred. Frank was very aggressive in the conversation. At this point she mentioned the obvious uncleanliness of the bathroom in general particularly the toilet bowel.
We reported these incidents to Airbnb with photographic proof and they confirmed it was not up to standard and offered us a refund for the rest of the nights if we wished to leave. However we decided to stay as we could not afford to get anywhere else in the city.
After reporting it to Airbnb, Frank knocked on my door while my friend was out and asked me to speak to him. He asked why we had mentioned these issues to Airbnb and I pointed out the visible uncleanliness of the kitchen and why this was frustrating as we had picked this place because a kitchen was listed. Frank told me that Airbnb had requested some of the money for the cleaning fee back and that he wasn’t going to pay it. Frank then said he would prefer us to leave and I told him that we could not afford to go elsewhere. He then mentioned the bathroom incident and I said that the toilet was visibly unclean before we got there, it had clearly not been our fault as there were no “feminine products” in toilet and that the way he had treated my friend was aggressive and had created an uncomfortable atmosphere in the apartment. After this he told me aggressively that we had to pack up our things and leave, which obviously upset me as it left myself and my friend, two young women on their own, without somewhere to stay.
I went back into the room and Frank followed me shouting about how we were a disgrace and how dare we make a report to Airbnb. He continued to shout at me through the door after I had closed it while being very visibly upset. I instantly contacted Airbnb to explain the situation and we were put in contact with the extremely helpful Marcos who had already been taking our case.
After a long period of calls from Airbnb to us and to Frank, Airbnb told us that had Frank had said to them that we were allowed to continue to stay, while he was saying to us that he didn’t want us there. At this point we also felt extremely unsafe in the apartment after the aggression we had experienced. After another confrontation with Frank where he reiterated that he didn’t want us there and angrily shouted at us, we knew it was unsafe for us to remain here. Airbnb were helpful with trying to find us another place but because Frank told them he would let us stay, as he clearly did not want to refund all the money, we could not be refunded for the whole trip if we left, only for the remaining days. This meant we could not afford to stay anywhere else.
Luckily a contact has managed to put us up for a few days but it was quite a frightening and unsettling experience especially we are two young women in foreign city.