This is a nice place in Emma, and we enjoyed the location and the apartment was comfortable , however we did not have a good experience with our host, Francesca. We booked the place last minute because our other lodging arrangements fell through unexpectedly . I accidentally selected 1 guest instead of 2 adults and 2 infants as I rushed to secure us a place to stay. I didn’t realize that I did this and then sent my ID as requested. The next day, the cleaning lady arrived at 10:30am even thought it said 11:00am was checkout time in the Airbnb app (which was different from the other instructions sent after the reservation was made). She said she would wait outside. In the meantime, as we struggled to get the washing machine cycle to stop early as we were rushing to get out to be courteous, our 5 month old son crawled for the first time and fell off the bed and hit his head. We were distraught. The time was about 10:45am and the cleaning lady knocked again. We let her know what happened and that we’d need to bring our son to the hospital and needed a couple more minutes. She completely disregarded what we said and with an utter lack of compassion or regard for our infant son’s wellbeing as he was screaming and crying in my wife’s arms, said “how many people are in here?” I messaged our host Francesca letting her know that our son fell and we’d need 15 extra minutes and, unbelievably, she too showed a complete lack of compassion, ignored what we had just told her, and said we were supposed to be out by 10:30am and that she was charging us $15 extra for the extra people. I was so distraught about my son at this point and said ok, and we rushed out. After we made sure that our son was ok via a medical exam, I texted Francesca with a screenshot showing her the app said checkout was at 11am and a screenshot of a dummy booking I made for the next night at her place that showed the same exact cost for 2 adults and 2 infants as for one adult. Instead of inquiring about the well-being of our infant son, she became defensive but ultimately said she would “cover the extra charges” since she wanted to “end this” which I was very confused about since the cost was the same for our family as it was for one adult. I didn’t wish to argue further and left it at that. Full disclosure: I speak fluent Italian as a dual national, so there was no language barrier or misunderstanding here.
The parking on the street is NOT free as the listing and one of the reviews mention. We woke up to a €40
Ticket. We arrived late and didn’t see the blue lines in the dark and we assumed that since the listing and review said it was free, that it would be free. Wrong. The listing needs to be updated with the proper information.
In summary, the apartment and location are great, but Francesca’s and the cleaning lady’s complete lack of regard or compassion for a infant that just experienced a head injury in her apartment as well as her trying to tack on additional, unjustified charges, seriously call into question her character and I would advise taking this into consideration before booking.