The apartment was plagued by a stench. This extremely unpleasant and intense smell appears to be sewage-related and to originate from a recess/attic area in the hallway where the plumbing and drains pass through. The smell permeates the entire apartment and is especially strong in the small bedroom, hallway, and master bedroom. The kitchen and living-room could be made barely habitable by keeping the doors shut and the windows fully open.

We stayed in the apartment twice. During the first stay, the smell was unpleasant but still tolerable. We tried to ignore it and did not point it out to the owner, also to not make the stay and relationship uncomfortable. When we came back, 10 days later, the smell was so intense and repulsive that we had to alert him.

After trying to claim - against all evidence - that the odor came from the outside, the owner had to admit that it came from the apartment. He pointed to the recessed area at the end of the hallway as the possible source and, sure enough, when he proceeded to open it the smell became intolerable. He recognized the problem, apologized, and offered a full refund.

He then offered to help us find a comparable accommodation for the remainder of the stay. We know Rome extremely well and had sorted through hundreds of apartments, so we replied that we would immediately do it ourselves. All acceptable alternatives were predictably booked, so we had to cut our vacation short. We changed our tickets to the first available flight and informed the owner. He apologized again and agreed to write a letter for our travel insurance.

Sadly, once we were back home, the owner went back on his word and changed his stand by first saying that the smell comes from outside, then that it's actually the attic's "stale" odor, then that it enters the attic from the outside and from there proceeds to permeate the apartment, and finally that the smell simply doesn't exist. The plumber couldn't identify the source, so the problem doesn't exist.

He only issued a partial refund, backed up from his promise to write
the letter for the insurance, and "forgot" to refund the city taxes
as agreed. We had asked for a full refund and the letter, which still
would have only been a partial compensation for the total financial
cost and disruption.

During our first stay, the owners had been quick and courteous in responding to minor problems such as a defective kitchen faucet, an out-of order Internet connection, and a faulty washing machine.

Unfortunately, once they were faced with a serious problem, the response was severely lacking and possibly in bad faith. We regret that future guests' experiences might be ruined by this intense and obnoxious smell as long as the owners keep ignoring and not taking responsibility for it.