Upon arrival at Jens’ place, we were immediately met with rudeness and made to feel very unwelcome. As three young girls in a new city this really didn’t help us to feel at ease. Firstly, after accidentally ringing the doorbell twice the host aggressively shouted down the phone to only ring it once ‘not fifty times’.
Next, we’re up in the apartment, after being let in by Jens’ partner. We get a very brief tour of the apartment with little instruction on key information needed for our stay. After being shown to our room, both Jens and his partner begin to walk off, presuming everything is done. We had to stop them and ask ‘sorry do we have a set of keys for the room’ they realise that this has been overlooked and show us where the set of keys are; notably there were about 5 keys on the keyring. They begin to retreat again before one of us saying again ‘sorry, which key does what and which do we need to use to unlock the apartment, which do we need to access the main building, which for the room etc’ they show us after again realising their oversight. Hence, there was little instruction from both Jens and partner, and if one of us hadn’t realised their oversights, we may not have been able to get back into the apartment later in the evening. Leaving us unsafe.
the room: There were four of us in total booked to stay at Jens and his Partner’s place with one person joining us a night later. The room was absolutely not fit for four people. Our first night was with just three of us and we struggled to fit three people and three small cabin suitcases into the room. Cleanliness was also not great and the whole apartment was a little smelly.
The bathroom: the bathroom again was not particularly clean or easy to use. The shower being fixed jetting out from the wall meant that it couldn’t be used without projecting water all over the floor or by holding it then having to switch it off to apply shower gel/shampoo etc. There was one small wall light making the room dark as well as there being no mirror. This wasn’t for vanity reasons but could be needed for brushing teeth / flossing / shaving. There was also no mirror in the bedroom.
It was clear from the offset that Jens did not like us and made this very apparent. His partner was friendly and most communication was had with her. Upon even saying hello to Jens on arrival he didn’t respond to us and simply ignored our greeting.
Later on in the evening of our first night 2 of us walked upstairs to get a glass of water. Some of the other guests were sat upstairs chatting and making a lot of noise. Jens came upstairs and engaged in conversation with the other guests asking them how their day was, and being fairly friendly. He simply glanced at my friend and I and said ‘shoes’ then left the room. We made an honest mistake by leaving our shoes on in the kitchen of the apartment and thus, apologised and said it wouldn’t happen again.
The following morning we received an aggressive message suggesting we were not welcome in the apartment instructing us that a hostel would be better suited to our needs. We responded by apologising again for leaving our shoes on the one time and asked specifically what we had done wrong so that we could rectify our actions to make the stay more comfortable for all of us. These messages were ignored. We sent an additional couple of messages telling Jens that if he would like us to vacate the apartment we would oblige and asked if he would be around for us to make a further apology in person for whatever undisclosed reason for our departure. These messages were again ignored. Hence, we gathered our things and left the room in the same state it was given to us and moved to a hostel - sunset hostel. The place was clean and in lovely condition and the room was actually hospitable for four people.
We are still unsure as to what we did for Jens to treat us so rudely, perhaps because we are three young British girls. But if you’re looking for a nice, clean, calm place to stay We suggest looking at hostels. Our hostel was about 500 metres from Jens place and cost the same amount of money.