On arrival a pleasant Airbnb that looks like the photos. Comfortable sofa, great and well equipped kitchen. No AC which we knew when we booked, not expecting it to be quite as unseasonably hot (27-29°), so the bedroom got pretty warm. Might not want to stay here in mid summer, will not bother others. Only 1 pillow supplied per person.
However we noticed from the start of our stay that we were being bitten a lot by insects. Having already spent 3 weeks elsewhere in Portugal before arriving this seemed unusual, but initially we put it down to the weather.
About halfway through the week-long stay we each had 30+ bites on our body, so I started checking the apartment for the cause and almost immediately discovered a live bed bug. Subsequently found a small but established infestation (shedded exoskeletons etc, multiple bugs nesting in the seams of the mattress).
After reporting this to the host, it was two hours before we received a response which I felt was far too slow, given Airbnb prices are now equivalent to a hotel, where I'm confident a solution would have been found far more quickly.
The response itself was extremely disappointing and frankly insulting, as it was largely an attempt to claim we'd brought the infestation along with us. This was clearly not the case, given the number of bugs and evidence (shedding) that they'd been there a while. It also beggars belief that we could have brought an infestation this large with us in our luggage, all of which was stored in a separate room, and that the bugs would have migrated to the bed in the space of one night to begin biting us. Especially when the bites only began after we entered the property, having as mentioned spent most of the month in Portugal elsewhere blessedly bite-free.
While a refund for our remaining nights was promptly offered, we were offered no compensation or more importantly apology for the fact that our whole day was wasted scrubbing our luggage and laundering our clothes to prevent us taking them home.
I have no doubt that the bed bugs were brought here by another, likely recent guest, and that it's almost impossible to prevent this in the hospitality trade. That's not my real frustration here, which was instead the very poor way the follow-up was handled.
For anyone reading this, Airbnb won't allow new guests to stay until the listing has been fumigated so you should be fine. But in future I'll be checking the mattress before I unpack my bags.