I stayed with my family at Nestor’s place for a little over two weeks this past month (October 2021). I really want to be fair and reasonable in my review of my stay there, but I can’t in good conscience say that I had a great stay. From the beginning of our stay, part of the problem with this host is that communication is very one-sided. They send long template-style messages regarding rules for the apartment and tips for things to do in the area, but they fall short of making a stay easy here. If it had been for just one night, I would've moved on and not had a problem, but it was bad enough to hamper my experience in Athens.
Several days before my stay I had messaged the host to let him know that I would be arriving early in Athens and I asked him whether we could check-in early or at least drop off our bags early (since we had a long flight). He had said that would not be a big problem and that if he didn’t have a tenant in the apartment the morning of our check-in date that we could check-in early, or that we could at least drop off our luggage around 11AM. About 2-3 days before the actual date we were to arrive, I received from Airbnb check-in instructions with a security code to retrieve the key to the apartment from downstairs. As it turns out, we later found out that the host actually had changed the code and waited until the morning of the reservation to message me while we were on a 10-hour flight to Athens (so we couldn’t access the key because the code I had been given was wrong). We ended up waiting outside and were able to communicate with another tenant in the building to help us call one of the hosts. To their credit, they did end up getting the cleaning lady to let us in to leave our luggage, but all of this was very unnecessary and made our already long travel day that much more uncomfortable. I was also left with the impression that there was not a tenant in the apartment that morning, so the host just waited until the last minute to have the apartment cleaned.
If that was all that had happened during our stay I probably wouldn’t even mention it, but there are so many aspects of this Airbnb stay that people need to be aware of before staying here.
1. Anyone booking a stay here should know that this apartment’s electricity (lights, water heater, etc.) is controlled by a panel in which you insert the key to the apartment. Though I understand the host’s need to conserve energy, it is extremely inconvenient to simultaneously lock the door and turn on the lights, so just be aware of that. There were multiple times I had to use my phone flashlight to find the keys in the dark to lock the door and then insert the key fob to turn on the lights. Likewise, you should be aware that although there is an elevator in the building, it has a maximum occupancy of 3 people. So in our case, our family of 4 would have to separate every time going in and out of the apartment (I would walk down or up the stairs and my family would take the elevator). I understand when traveling you can't have things as comfortable as you would in your own home, but these things all made our stay more uncomfortable.
2. This is, as expected, a very old building. Though the cleaning lady did her best to clean the apartment the day of our arrival, it was only cleaned once during our stay (over 2 weeks) and there is a problem with roaches in the kitchen! My family did our best to keep the kitchen clean by meticulously cleaning dishes, throwing away our trash after every meal, etc. but roaches would literally be crawling around the kitchen counter seconds after food was being heated. I don’t know whether this is due to a lack of any type of fumigating or just a really old infested building, but it is a real problem and the host doesn’t seem to do anything except tell guests to clean. This became such a problem that we truly couldn’t enjoy our stay at this place—and this was in the middle of the fall when the weather was cool. I cannot imagine what it would be like in the summer.
3. This particular Airbnb is just in a bad neighborhood—I’m not one to be faint of heart to poor or dirty neighborhoods, but we saw a man urinating in the middle of the street (not a corner, the middle of the street) right in front of the building as we passed by. We also would see feces often on the sidewalk. To be fair, I’m not saying that the host is responsible for these things, but it’s just something to be aware of when booking a stay here. The first week of our stay, we heard shouting outside the apartment from a woman apparently asking for help telling someone to stop in Greek (it sounded like a domestic violence situation). Later, towards the end of our stay (our second week) we also heard loud shouting from the apartment next door in the early hours of the morning (some type of argument). The host had left meticulous instructions about keeping quiet hours late at night and early in the morning, but there was never any indication of how disruptive this neighborhood would get at odd hours.
Overall, I truly wish I could recommend a stay here—I am not one to give an unfavorable review but I think that people should be aware of these types of things before they book a stay. There are many issues here which in isolation might be ok--but when you add them all up,