Overall, our stay started very poorly however it ended ok. Initially we had informed the owner/contact person on Airbnb that we were a family with a young baby who would like to stay for two weeks during the Easter break, needing at least a travel cot and a nearby parking space for our car. It was confirmed that there was a travel cot and the property came with a parking space 400m away.
Upon arrival at 2:30am we discovered the property to be in a poor condition. Some of the issues were:
Very old and dirty travel cot – Rather than a mattress someone had folded up a satin throw for a large bed and covered it with a small cot flat sheet – this is a health and safety issue as a baby could get caught up in this
The property was very dirty. Not only was there debris from previous guests on the kitchen worktops the outsides of the kitchen units had food marks left on them
Hairs in the kitchen drawers and cupboards
Crockery, cutlery and utensils were dirty and had food residue on them
The bathroom had black mould in the grouting in the shower area and on the ceiling. The anti-slip mat in the shower had black mould spores.
The foot mat provided was dirty and had not been cleaned prior to our arrival
Shower doors were dirty with fingerprints and build up of black mould on them
The shower enclosure had evidence of previous guests – hairs, soap residue etc in it
Hairs from previous guests on the bathroom floor
Car parking was 1000m away rather than 400m
Due to the time of our arrival we did what we could and got our son to sleep in the bed – which was clean along with the bedding. We reported these issues to the owner the following morning and despite two messages no one responded so we escalated the issues to AirBNB. Then by chance when we were leaving the apartment we bumped into the owner of the flat and took her in to show her all of the issues. She agreed to replace the travel cot, mattress, sheets and send the cleaners back in however this could not happen till the Saturday. As there was literally no other accommodation in Athens (being Easter) we decided that if we could resolve some of these issues we would stay. The two biggest issues were cleanliness of the apartment and the cot. Although the owner offered to send the cleaner back (she couldn’t come for three days) my wife and i decided that we would clean the apartment in the interim and did so that day (the mould on the bathroom ceiling remained) and our son slept in the bed. On the Saturday as agreed (three days after our arrival) someone arrived with a replacement travel cot and a cleaner arrived who gave the place another clean.
Overall even though some of the issues were resolved I wouldn’t recommend this apartment.