READ THIS BEFORE BOOKING THE ROOM!!
I have been living in Lisbon for half a year now staying in lots of different Airbnbs and there was never any major problem. This one however was by far the worst Airbnb experience that I’ve ever had, for multiple reasons. Let me give you a summary of all the problems.
I stayed in the apartment for a whole month. Right on the first day, one of the other people living in the apartment complained to the host about me not cleaning the dishes, which wasn’t even true. The same person lives in the apartment permanently and also gets paid for cleaning it. Even if it was true, why don’t you come to me first to talk directly instead of complaining to the host on day one? The same person also kept telling me to clean the bathroom, although she is the one getting paid to do that, while I paid a cleaning fee. I always left the kitchen and the bathroom as clean as I found it, but it’s not my job to clean it.
The kitchen is in awful shape. The oven is not working and all the shelves are very dirty and sticky, which is why I rarely used it.
The bathroom looks fine on the first sight. However, in the corners on the ceiling there is mold…
There are five rooms in total sharing one kitchen and one bathroom. Two of the rooms were added to the apartment later by splitting up the living room with a wall. These two rooms are extremely small and have very thin walls, so you can hear everything from the other room. One of these rooms is the one I lived in. The other one however doesn’t have a window to the outside, which makes it illegal for Álvaro to rent it. That’s why that room is not listed officially as an Airbnb, but yet he rents it „under the radar“.
All of this illegal business wouldn’t be a problem for me, if Álvaro wouldn’t be so strict about „rules“ with me:
I had two guests staying at my room for some days. Due to the fact that is was never a problem for the host to have guests in my prior Airbnb experiences, I didn’t see a problem with that. We also barely spent any time in the house, because we were in Lisbon every day. The host Álvaro however had a problem with it and told me to have them leave, which I did. He even went that far to write a complaint to the Airbnb Support, who threatened to delete my account and cancel my booking.
The description of the room is „ROMANTIC 1 bedroom in Lisboa“ and the room has a double bed. So how is it not allowed to have guests?
Overall, in my opinion Álvaro made up a big deal out of a minor problem that he could’ve handled differently. He claimed that I wasn’t acting according to the rules, while he is renting a room illegally.
Because of the messed up relationship between me, Álvaro and the other complaining guest, my stay got very uncomfortable and I didn’t feel welcomed for the rest of the stay.