This was by far the worst AirBnB experience I've ever had, in all aspects: the host, the apartment, and the location.
Summary:
- The "host" was completely disinterested and rude. Communication was the worst I've ever experienced. Absolutely no effort to make us feel welcome or comfortable.
- The apartment was so poorly equipped that it was almost completely unlivable unless just used as a crash pad for a couple of nights (with earplugs). For example, for cooking utensils there was one small metal ladle. That's it! Not a single spatula, not to mention no lighter for the gas burners.
- The neighborhood was trashy (literally piles of trash on the street) and extremely loud. It's on the ground floor, and the roar of the passing motorbikes is amplified by the cobblestones and the narrow passage through tall buildings. Not to mention the constantly screaming next door neighbor. I had to wear ear plugs all day long in order to work on the computer.
I have never given less than 4 stars for anything in an AirBnB review, even if something wasn't great. I usually give the host the benefit of the doubt, and I give them private feedback, err on the high side with the stars, and keep it positive when mentioning anything that people should be aware of. In this case, I'm giving 1 star across the board, and I hope this host goes out of business.
Details:
Host:
Usually when I book an AirBnB, I receive some sort of welcome message right away. Not so with this "host". I messaged her after a few days just to make sure that she wasn't going to cancel on me, and I received a short reply that came across like "don't bother me until closer to the arrival date".
Later, my travel plans needed to be adjusted and I requested an extension via AirBnB. (Thank goodness it never happened.) The problem is, Antonia never responded. I had to message her on her phone, and by that time the apartment had been booked during the dates I requested. I suspect she deliberately ignored the request because I was paying less, the long-term rate.
Another bad communication experience came when my partner messaged her on her phone (I couldn't bear to talk to her) close to arrival date to arrange checkin. She responded with a voice message in Italian! How in the world are we supposed to translate a voice message in Italian?? A text message in Italian is fine, it can easily be copied and pasted into a translation app.
We had questions about where to take the trash and how to operate the door locks, and in response to this she sent a neighbor who spoke no English and was quite brusque.
We did have one somewhat successful communication during the stay: When we notified her that the metal security door was broken, she did send someone to fix it. We made the effort to go through the difficult communication on that issue because it was a security issue. Other than that, we did not feel comfortable asking her for anything.
The final terrible communication experience was the night before we left. We heard nothing from her about checkout until at 8pm the non-English speaking neighbor knocked on our door and asked us to leave at 9am because a new guest was coming at 1pm. First of all, published checkout time is 10am, and published checkin time is 1pm. Change your times if you need more time for cleaning. Secondly, why in the world would you send a non-English speaking person to knock on our door at 8:00 at night? Why not just send a message in the AirBnB app, which auto-translates?
Apartment:
The apartment looks nice in the pictures, and it does appear that way when you walk in. It appeared very clean when we arrived, until we discovered the cockroaches. Which are really inevitable considering the piles of trash on the street - more about that later.
The problems is, it lacks almost everything you would need for day to day living beyond just crashing a couple of nights. Examples:
- There were plenty of shelves and hanging space for clothes, but only 3 hangers. There was a dryer (a rare luxury!) but no laundry basket.
- The kitchen had 1 small metal ladle but not a single spatula or any other kind of cooking utensil. There was no lighter to light the gas burners. There were 12 steak knives but not a single food prep knife.
- There was no trash can in the bathroom. We used the inner liner of the kitchen trash can.
- There is no side table by the sofa. I used a cardboard box to set my morning tea on.
- There is no side table or shelf by the bed. The bedroom is quite narrow and there is no space for a side table, but a small shelf could be installed. I used my carryon luggage with a kitchen pot on top to hold my earplugs, eyeshade, lotion, medications, water, etc.
I will say, the bed was comfortable (although the mattress was old and stained), the internet was fast, the air conditioning worked well, there were lots of towels, and it was really nice having a dryer. But those are basics (besides the dryer). Everything else was missing.
Neighborhood:
Naples is filthy.
One of the other reviews says "authentic Italian neighborhood". More like authentic Italian slum. There were literally piles of trash and overflowing trash cans all along the street, as well as tons of graffiti on every surface. The entire historic city center of Naples is like this. It's appalling and disgusting. I didn't want to set foot outside the apartment.
Go look on your Maps app at the street view around the National Archaelogical Museum. Walk up and down the small streets. You will see what I mean. Unfortunately all of Naples within about a 30 minute walking radius