My husband and I were in urgent need of accommodation and were looking for a place to stay for a few days. We contacted Zoe before placing a booking to ensure we could still gain access. She responded promptly which we greatly appreciated and we placed the booking. When we arrived at the building, there was no key box on the outside as we were told there would be. After a back and forth with Zoe we determined the box had gone missing. At this point we came to learn that Zoe was not in Thessaloniki. She and her partner did try to amend the situation and after 20 minutes or so we were directed to another property around 5 minutes away on foot.
We got to the new building and we were about to get the key for the new property and we were told that someone with the key to the original property could come and meet us, and were told to go back. We asked to be picked up by the person with the key as we had a lot of luggage and were picked up and taken back to the original property and taken up to the room. After we were let in, the person who brought us the key left. At this point it was past midnight.
It was very cold in Thessaloniki on the day, and it was very cold in the apartment too. There was no separate heating system (central) just the air conditioner. We turned it on full heat and full power but even on this setting the apartment did not warm up, even while it was on all night.
We had issues finding the details to connect to the wifi, the tv was missing and there were a few wall fixtures missing. By this point we had started our journey from England at 07:30 GMT and it was now close to 02:30 GMT+2. We were too tired to take it up with the hosts at that moment in time, we did appreciate that we were still able to speak the host even at this late hour. We told the hosts that we didn’t want to stay for the rest of our booking as we didn’t find the room as advertised, and we all decided it was best to discuss it in the morning.
We got into bed for the night shivering, in many layers, with the AC on full power, with the noise making it even harder to sleep.
We woke up after a very poor night of sleep and had an appointment to get to by 10, so we packed our bags and left the apartment knowing we were not going back. We held on to the keys so that we could lock the room and then asked the hosts to ask the person who brought us the keys in the first place to pick them up from us.
We made a list of things that were not as advertised and made a case to the hosts for cancelling the rest of our booking. They were shocked to hear certain items such as the TV were missing, and then realised that the apartment had been broken into and these items stolen. After we figured this out the hosts were willing to refund the rest of the booking. But insisted we still had to pay for two nights, even though we had only been in the apartment for a maximum of 9 hours.
After some complaints through Air BnB we managed to get a refund for the second night, but the ordeal was a nightmare overall.
I think the experience would have been better if some factors had been different. In summer, heating would not be required and the hosts would likely be in the city to help by themselves at other points in the year.
Also we were unlucky to be the ones to be the first to rent the apartment after it was broken into.
The apartment was clean and I’m sure greater precautions will be taken in the future to increase the security.