This was hands down the worst accommodation I have ever stayed in on or off Airbnb and I would not recommend it to anyone. I booked this room for two nights but due to the conditions and the disregard for my safety from the host we were only able to stand staying there for one night.
I stayed in Florence during a heat wave which was a state declared emergency. Prior to my arrival I contacted the host to ensure that there would be sufficient ventilation in the room. They whole heartedly reassured me that it would be fine and that a fan would be provided. Upon arrival we found the room was incredibly stuffy and significantly hotter than the rest of the apartment (it was consistently even hotter than in the street).
The fan made no difference at all, while turned on it only circulated the hot stuffy air. It worked on a timer so turned off every hour, which led to us waking up sweating profusely EVERY single hour of the night and having to turn it back on. Even when we switched it on it was difficult to fall asleep in the heat. The timer mechanism was apt given we were slowly being baked.
Following a long and sweaty first night I contacted the host to inform them of the insufficient and unbearable conditions. I also asked if there was any further ventilation that could be provided. They laughably told me there wasn’t and that I should take a cold shower instead. This perplexed me as we could feel the coolness coming from the rooms in the corridor as other guests clearly had better fans than us. They also unhelpfully suggested that we should sleep on the floor which is ridiculous when I was paying €80 a night for a bed.
They also attempted to excuse the ridiculous levels of heat (and later their inadequate response) by claiming that we are unaccustomed to high temperatures. I found this preposterous as firstly, Italy had declared a state of emergency due to the heat (which caused multiple wildfires and even deaths due to the heat) and secondly because I am Nepali and therefore well acquainted with hot climates. In any case this is a pathetic excuse as the room should not be hotter than the outdoors especially with a ‘fan’ (unless the host wishes to change this listing to a greenhouse).
I was however told that someone would come around to check our fan. We left the fan unplugged and upon return it was still unplugged. The host claimed they had discovered a setting which prevented the fan from working on a timer. They sent a photo of this proposed setting which was ‘on’ which merely indicated that the timer was on. They therefore clearly hadn’t actually turned the fan on to check as it was still unplugged when we returned and the setting did not work at all (it actually turned the fan off completely!) I informed them of this in the early afternoon and they replied to none of my messages until the following day (by which time I had moved to a hotel). Regardless of the timer, while the fan was switched on it was completely insufficient.
On thé second night we spent hours trying to cool the room down but nothing worked at all. It reached the point where we couldn’t stand it and had to seek out alternative accommodation (at great personal expense, one night at a hotel was more expensive than the whole Airbnb stay combined). I therefore thought it perfectly reasonable to ask for a refund for ONLY the second night, as we didn’t even sleep in the room. I thought it would have been understandable for me to request both nights given the circumstances.
However the hosts rejected my request and claimed that the conditions were fine (despite them knowing we had to move as the conditions were borderline inhumane). They were fully aware that I was a student who had to drain their bank account so as not to dehydrate in their sweltering room whilst they rent out multiple rooms and I was only requesting a refund for one night in a room I DIDN’T USE. They clearly care more about profits than about their guests.
As of today they have not replied to many of my messages and their few replies were them claiming that I cannot handle the heat, making out as if the situation is my fault rather when it is literally their responsibility to make the apartment habitable. All in all they were incredibly unsympathetic throughout.
I realise that this might sound quite hyperbolic but I really really cannot emphasise how uncomfortable the conditions were. I have never ever left a bad review for any place I have stayed in before now. There were many other reasons that made the stay uncomfortable beyond the heat (although I feel that I have already said enough to merit my 1-star review).
We were at no point informed that other Airbnb guests would be staying in the apartment, especially considering there were no locks on the bedroom doors. Even we only discovered there were other guests upon arrival and they seemed equally alarmed to see us. The bathroom was often left in a bad way too. I’ve stayed in better and cheaper hostels (we called many many hostels when attempting to find another last minute room, all of which seemed nicer than this Airbnb and I would recommend you give them a look).
At one point we believed that someone had been in our room as it was not as we had left it. The host just responded that it was not safe to leave important belongings in the room, rather than being concerned that someone had entered.
Equally the tree bed is simply a metal frame with a few planks on top supporting a mattress with twigs taped on for aesthetic (fitting for a greenhouse). It is in