We were really looking forward to staying at this air bnb at the end of our weeklong trip to Italy. While the place is beautiful, there was a lot of work involved staying here. At $383/night, I did not expect the issues we encountered. Of the 4 places we stayed in Italy, this was the most high maintenance.
1. A/C broken/limited use, limited electrical, and weird smells.
- When we checked in, there was a smell of wet rags. We mentioned it to our greeter, who looked at us like we were crazy and left. My husband opened the windows in 95 degree heat for 15 minutes, and aired out the place. Most of the odors went away though they later came back during the first couple of days.
- After waiting for the stench to dissipate, we turned on the a/c and started laundry. After 5 minutes, the electricity turned off. My husband had to find the breakers (outside) and restart the circuit. The greeter told us that we could have the a/c on in 1 room and the laundry at the same time (but not all rooms). Odd.
- We left to do some sightseeing, and came back that night. After my daughter took a shower, she went into the bunk room bed - a deluge of water fell on her. The a/c was leaking. I sent a message to the greeter at midnight, and didn’t get a response. My husband located a large bucket and we used our towels and the bucket to absorb the water. There was over an inch of water in the bucket 6 hours later. I contacted the hosts again in the morning, and they said this was an existing problem and would try and move their appointment with the ac technician up.
2. The washer/dryer does not work.
The clothes do not dry, so we used the stairwell to hang the clothes. Also, the washer damaged several of our clothes - e.g. the colors dramatically faded.
3. Lot of rules/work
- The host requires you to dump garbage and wash dishes before you leave. Since our flight was at 8 am on a Sunday, their garbage location was open from Saturday from 9-5 pm. I thought this was weird, until we walked there with our garbage. The 3 minute walk requires a G(oogle) Map, and is essentially the dump for the neighborhood.
- The host sends a bunch of fine print and directions after you book. E.g., turn off all lights and a/c every day. This is sent to you multiple times. I do not find this particularly welcoming, and instead feel like my mother is nagging me. Also, it looks to be 6 representatives, which felt confusing - some are more responsive than not. So I’m not sure if it’s an agency or who is managing the place. My other air bnbs had one contact, which was nice.

4. Not enough supplies
The worst was toilet tissue. There are two bathrooms, and only one bathroom had ONE extra roll. We are a party of 4 staying 4 nights. At a minimum, I’d expect there to be one extra roll for each bathroom (4 rolls total). Instead, we ran out on the day before we left. I pinged the host and they told me to buy it and send the receipt for reimbursement. Okay, except I’m a tourist and I don't really want to haul tissue around when I’m going around in Rome. So I thought I’d get it after dinner - well apparently stores close early in Rome on Saturdays and there aren’t too many supermarkets in the city center. I panicked when the restaurant told me this, and the poor restaurant host fell so sorry for me, he gave me a stack of dinner napkins to tide me over! If you have to worry about toilet tissue at an airbnb and rely on the kindness of strangers, that is a problem. Related to lack of supplies, on our last night, there were no garbage bags or paper towels to clean up. I thought this was odd since we had used the original bags to take the garbage to the dump.
All-in-all, this place felt like I was at home, managing my household, doing chores, troubleshooting problems, and nagging my family to clean/turn off lights/etc. I did not feel like I was on vacation at all. Our other air bnbs amenities weren’t as nice, but the hosts were way more friendlier and helpful and didn’t have a laundry list of do’s and don’ts.
My recos: I understand there can be problems like a/c being broken, but it would be nice if the hostess was a bit more sympathetic. E.g. a short apology on inconveniencing us versus telling us it’s an existing problem. The other things I would recommend: (1) Put a sign on your washer/dryer to warn folks that a) the dryer doesn’t dry as well, and b) be careful with clothes you love, (2) add more supplies to your apartment - nothing more annoying than worrying about whether you ate too much cheese that evening and you might not have enough toilet tissue that night, (3) increase your cleaning fee so that people don’t have to go to the local dump yard - this is a major inconvenience and not something that other air bnb’s ask you to do, (4) send note on a/c conservation once (not everyday), and invest in automated controls for temperature.
Location-wise, this is at the outskirts of the historical center. I would recommend if you have a short, action-packed stay in Rome, to get a place closer. After an average of 20-30K steps/day, that additional 10 minutes of walking to the outskirts is a challenge - we ended up taking the bus/metro (which the location is well suited for) or taxi. I would say this place is about a 20-25 minute walk to Pantheon/Colisseum/Trevi, etc.