What started out as a nice enough experience , changed 3 weeks in to our month long stay when the apartment started falling apart.
First the curtain rod in the living room fell down when I went to open the curtain the morning, we are talking a heavy solid wood rod falling from 2 m or 6 ft in height narrowly missing my head. Few days later a heavy wooden and mirror armoire door falling on me when I opened it, again, I was able to catch it so luckily me and the door was safe. We informed the owner, who sent a couple of handymen to fix the two problems. They were there for maybe 20 minutes or so, no one asked what happened , how it happened or if I was ok. Didn’t think anything of it, assuming that they were relieved that no one got hurt and that we didn’t make a big deal out of it. It’s an old flat with old things and sometimes they fall apart.
Couple of days after the check out we got a text from the host and the repair bill for our “ carelessness “ For €180 with the VAT. Eliana told us that they would pay to fix the armoire, but that for such little money we are to pay the $80 for the curtain rod as we should have taken more care. We were surprised by this, especially to claim €80 for what took 5 minutes & couple of screws to fix what was never installed properly in the first place.
When my husband told me how much we paid, I couldn’t believe I would have booked such an apartment. I thought I remembered that it was quite fabulous, but that was not exactly the impression we got.. it is when I went to look at the listing again, that I saw that the photos of the listing didn’t match the reality.
The listing shows a chic eclectic apartment with a dedicated office work space which was the selling point as my husband works on his computer all day. The downstairs bedroom is pictured with more modern beds , the apartment in the photos is uncluttered and airy without all of the extra heavy furniture & the balconies are inviting with green plants. To me this was all worth paying extra as we booked a month long stay.
What we got was a cluttered apartment with a bunch of old furniture, no desk . The beds in the downstairs bedroom are completely different. The room is cluttered with what looks like their grandma’s bedroom with a creaky bed and the room has the smell of old furniture that you cannot air out. Because of this we moved to the upstairs loft where the roof leaks when it rains. There is no office room with a desk, it is a cluttered area between the kitchen and the bedroom. The paint on the kitchen ceiling is peeling and forget the idea of relaxing on the balcony with wine as pictured. The street is so noisy and hot that you will only use it to smoke your cigarettes if you smoke. We wouldn’t have noticed this otherwise, it didn’t occur to me to check the listing which is a lesson learned.
We are a middle aged couple and we are not careless, we respect the places we stay in and we also don’t like to leave negative reviews as can be seen from the profile. To be fair our experience with Claudia was pleasant and we did enjoy our stay not noticing the inconsistency with the listing. Things turned ugly only once they received the outrageous bill from their handymen which we believe is the real issue.