My daughter and I spent 3 nights in the apartment of Krista near the Spanish steps. We chose this apartment because of the excellent location in the historic centre of Rome, and many features mentioned in the listing, such as the roof terrace, wifi, airconditioning, elevator, etc. Unfortunately it turned out that the description of the apartment in the listing is very misleading and contains a lot of false information. To start with: this property is not a whole apartment but a part of an apartment. In the other part live the owners. The two parts are interconnected by a door, this fact was not mentioned in the listing but it was material for our sense of privacy, we did not feel comfortable knowing that the owners could potentially at any moment come into the part where we stayed.
Renting this apartment we were misled by positive reviews given to Krista by previous guests. We suspect that the positive reviews might relate to a different apartment of Krista, since they contradict our experience.
Another serious problem we faced was the access to the apartment. The main entrance door to the apartment is located in the owners' part. In the part that we occupied there was only a back door leading to the service stairs that were not meant for active use, dirty and cluttered with trash from other apartments. To access our rented property we had to either climb the dirty and narrow service stairs to the 5th floor or enter from the owners' side of the building, use the elevator to the 5th floor, then climb stairs to the roof, cross the roof, reach the service stairs and go back to the 5th floor to the back door of the apartment. We had to use in total 6 keys to access our part of the apartment. The check-in was a complicated and lengthy exercise that took about 1.5 hours, when the owner Elio showed us how to access our part of the apartment and which keys to use for each door. The information about the difficult access to the apartment is missing from the listing! The listing mentions that the apartment is an attic located on the 6th floor of the building but this is not true. The rooms we were given were located on the 5th floor. We did not meet Krista, we did meet her husband Elio upon our arrival. He is a nice gentleman and we had a pleasant conversation.
The description in the listing is also misleading regarding the elevator. The listing says that the elevator goes to the penultimate (5th) floor, which is correct. Since we were staying on the 5th floor, one would assume that we could access our apartment by the elevator but unfortunately this was not the case. Having come with the elevator to the 5th floor we still had to climb the stairs to the roof, cross the roof, reach the service stairs and descend the service stairs to the door of our apartment. It was a big problem for us, since we are 2 women and had heavy suitcases which we had to carry ourselves up and down of more than 50 stairs.
The listing mentions that "Luggage-transport to the apartment is provided" which is again not true: we had to carry our suitcases up and down the stairs ourselves, the owners sent their elderly housekeeper to help us with the luggage but she was not up to the task due to her age and health condition.
Other false information in the listing concerns the size of the apartment claiming an "apartment at Spanish Steps of 775 sq.ft" for 2-5 people , only 7.4 inches ( 65 feet) from the Spanish Steps". The real size of the rooms we occupied was max. 50m2, and it was located at about 100m from the Spanish steps.
The apartment is very basic, there are 3 rooms: 1 bedroom with double bed (about 15m2), 1 bedroom with 1 single bed (about 10m2) and one living (about 10m2). Enough bedlinen and towels were provided, although the quality was very poor, it was all old and worn out. The kitchen is tiny and very strangely located in the corridor next to the entrance door. There is also a tiny refrigerator (size of a minibar). Two bathrooms are small and dated but are functional. There is a washing machine. Each room has an airconditioner. Unfortunately the airconditioners were too noisy to leave them on during the night. The main lamp in the masterbedroom did not function, we alerted the owners but they failed to fix the problem. The wifi worked well. The view from the apartment is to some backyard. Due to the many stairs the apartment is not suitable for people with disabilities.
One of the main attractions of the apartment - the roof terrace - disappointed. Although the view from the roof is beautiful, the listing did not mention that there is no direct access to the roof terrace from the apartment. In order to access the roof terrace one needs to exit the apartment and climb the service stairs.
Overall the apartment is not a good value for money. Most disappointing is the attitude of the owners who provided misleading information about the apartment in the listing and did not make an effort to make our stay comfortable.