Frankly, our stay with Angelo ruined our time in Rome. As a host he comes across as very kind and gracious online (“I am at your disposition”), but in real life he was rude and accusatory when something inconvenienced him.
We told him our bus left at 2 and he said he anticipated it would arrive at the apartment between 3-3:15 and he would be there. We arrived at 3:15/3:20 and he was not there. We borrowed someone’s cellphone to call him and he said, “I waited 45 minutes for you. I had to leave.” So it's our fault for you not being there when we agreed?
There was an incident with the toilet. It got clogged and there wasn’t a usable plunger at the apartment. My husband tried to use the 12-inch plastic “toy” plunger that was there, but it obviously didn’t do anything. After 5 hours of attempting to get the toilet to unclog on our own, we messaged Angelo. He said he’d be there in 40 minutes. He arrived and instantly accused my husband of putting things down it that weren’t supposed to go down it, saying “It isn’t supposed to look like this! What did you put in it??” Um, what do you think? Well after his jerry-rigged plunger out of a mop wrapped in towels got the toilet unclogged (the toy plunger didn’t work for him either), he then says we owe him 50 euros because that is what it would have cost him to call a plumber and how it took him time to come over and deal with it (as if we didn’t just waste a day of our vacation in Rome trying to fix your inept toilet). We did NOT pay him and explained that this was his problem/responsibility and part of what was involved in renting out an apartment on Airbnb—providing toilet facilities that work and plungers that cost more than a euro (literally, the plastic plunger has a “€ 1.00” sticker on it).
During the same visit, we noticed the back burner on the stove making a clicking noise. We had only used the front burner to boil some water for coffee without problem. Angelo pulls something off the back burner and puts it back on and the clicking stops. He then declares, “I fixed the stove YOU broke.” Wow.
Our daughter recommended Airbnb and she picked Angelo’s place for us to stay after reading all of the positive reviews. After our experience we will never be using Airbnb again, so it’s not a problem for us to leave an honest review of our time (most people are afraid to leave honest feedback because they get reviewed as well). Sorry Angelo, but you might want to rethink your career in hospitality.