Be careful renting this villa and also carefully consider how you are protected on this type of holiday. We have submitted a complaint through Airbnb. The complaint process allows the listed owner 72 hours to respond before Airbnb gets involved. This review is very detailed as we want to be clear as to what has happened and why we felt the need to submit a negative review.
The listed owner of this villa “Stefanakis” has never responded to our messages or those submitted through the complaint process. We aren’t even sure he actually exists or is a front for a company. We are now letting Airbnb take this forwards. We have no expectation at all of receiving any compensation as we’ve realised there is no adequate or timely protection when renting with Airbnb. It is just a series of emails between parties on a computer. We are now simply writing this review to prevent this happening to anyone else.
We rented this villa for 16 nights in July 2022. As background, we are both U.K. professionals, a well travelled family of 5 with three younger teens from South London. We were saved from part of this villa experience by being able to leave the villa in the second week for a few days and go somewhere else. Many people cannot afford to do this. We were determined not to waste our precious holiday time arguing with the owner in a foreign country about the state of the property (i.e. just feeling like we were still at work) so wrote an email on leaving with detailed photos and video. This also felt safer as we were with our children and didn’t want any angry agents arriving.
We have used Airbnb many many times in the U.K. and abroad. Each time it has been great and we’ve had good contact with the individual owners. We rented in Mallorca with Airbnb in 2021, three properties in Australia in 2017/18, Dorset 2020 and all were fabulous. The properties were exactly as in the photos and descriptions. Local owners who we met who loved their properties - clean and vibrant properties, pool man came every few days, clean floors, towels and sheets replaced after 7 days, beautiful food left in fridge for first breakfast, little treats etc. There are none of these personal touches here.
We have had no personal contact with “Stefanakis” apart from a blanket email received after paying the final balance. This blanket email details “Angela” who will greet you at the property and then the email directs you to various links selling holiday trips, grocery deliveries and hire cars. It all felt very corporate with no personal touch - all money making. We were told to tell “Angela” our arrival details.
All our past rentals with Airbnb matched the nightly prices charged - this villa was nowhere near the nightly rate. In summer 2022, the villa is commanding huge top-end prices but is, in our own personal opinion, playing catch-up on lost income post Covid. Zero investment or maintenance, no care, felt dirty and run down. The villa is destined to very shortly become a stained “party” villa for the weekend stag and hen but it definitely does not have the feel of a much needed little piece of relaxing family luxury.
The downstairs bed was shockingly filthy and also is just a mattress placed on unpainted wooden board on the floor. We found an old handkerchief in one of the beds upstairs - fabulous cleaning during Covid! The upstairs shower head was leaking and as I took a video to show “Angela” to get it fixed it exploded. Thank heavens none of the kids were under it. The downstairs shower head also leaked. The curtains were coming away upstairs and we couldn’t reach them to repair so they didn’t close, the kettle lid didn’t close so you could have ended up with boiling water everywhere, there were only two small wine glasses and two cereal bowls in a villa sleeping 8 as nothing has been replaced over time……..
The outside area was actually the most disappointing and not as pictured in the photos - no beautiful outside lights, a broken pool shower which flooded the decking, filthy glass walls that needed wiping, green rim around the pool, Astro turf buckled and weeds growing, stained chairs, mouldy bean bags, broken drying rack, different loungers to those photographed………
We listed over 16 maintenance issues in our Airbnb complaint and took photos to show them the actual state of the villa. It is simply just a list of faults. A few are dangerous and break rental regulations.
We ended up driving to a larger supermarket to just try to rectify the situation whilst we were there - bought floor mats, clothes pegs, some beakers etc. There was no hoover, broom, dustpan, cleaning products - not that you should ever be using these on holiday!! We rented for 16 nights and no one came to change towels, sheets, clean the outside floors, check and clean the pool etc. We ended up making a drying line out of rope so we could wash the towels mid-stay. I love camping - this felt like a camping experience but not the holiday I’d paid for.
In hindsight and good advice to myself going forwards, if I ever did rent another Airbnb property there must be personal contact with an actual owner. I would also now consider a shorter stay at any one particular villa and maybe moving somewhere else in a two week break to minimise any problems. Also for the current huge amounts of money for villa holidays would consider whether a hotel would have been a better, safer choice and much less stressful. There are some fabulous hotels on the Greek islands and many we now wish we’d rather have stayed in for cheaper amounts than we paid for this grotty villa. This particular villa was hard work which we just didn’t need. I also