An incredibly negative experience. In short: an unclean and uncared for listing with a host who became incredibly bitter and wrote insulting comments in the Airbnb messages.
For a more detailed review: we arrived to the Airbnb and the apartment wasn’t clean and there were numerous problems. The air smelled overwhelmingly musty, the floors were covered in dust so that our socks were dirty after walking around for 20 minutes, there was a layer of dust on the surfaces and appliances (including the lamp shade which was filled with clumps of dust, hanging directly over the bed), the bedsheets had small stains all over and felt damp (likely due to the broken window), there was a stained duvet left in the cupboard without a sheet, the bathroom was rusting all over and generally not particularly clean, the shower was blocked so didn’t drain, the hot water only worked for one shower, the wifi only worked with one bar standing in the entrance of the apartment - etc.
I contacted Maddalena to report the more pressing issues and asked for an extra cleaning and a sheet for the duvet, sending photos of these things. She arranged this for us the next day but literally the bare minimum was done, which was incredibly frustrating as we’d taken the time to be patient with things that essentially should have been done at our arrival. The place was still dusty, only the things I specifically sent photos of were cleaned or covered up, but other dirt and dust were ignored which defeats the point of a second cleaning. Plus, the window was left open after the cleaning with all our valuables inside and which also let in a whole bunch of flying ants which was pretty unpleasant. I contacted Maddalena again to say that this was disappointing, especially for the price paid and the fact that even the basics weren’t taken care of, equally explaining that I’d rather come to an agreement with a partial refund via Airbnb than leave a bad review (I run Airbnb apartments myself so I followed the general procedure). Maddalena soon became unbelievably rude in her messages, accusing us of exaggerating without even checking on the apartment herself (or through someone else) and of planting dust in the apartment from the garden. Needless to say we didn’t do this during our 2 day trip to Rome… Maddalena sooner contacted Airbnb trying to get us to leave rather than talk to us about the issues - it was very disappointing that she didn’t even pick up the phone to reply to us after we’d complained, it really felt like we weren’t the guests on our own holiday and were left to sort this out. We obviously quickly gave up on contacting her directly and went directly through Airbnb. Upon departure, Maddalena concluded her stream of rude messages telling us that she “has no words for people like us” and wished us good luck in life…
In conclusion, a tiresome, unpleasant and rude experience that we obviously wouldn’t recommend.