Prospective guests beware.
We felt like we were cheated by heavily edited and cherry-picked images for the Airbnb listing, showing it as bright, clean & spacious. Unfortunately this in reality is not the case. The quality of the fittings & furnishings were very poor & when arriving on the property there was a strong damp smell all throughout the apartment.
The hosts were nothing but rude and hostile when we spoke with them. They sent their team to inspect the property, and when we showed them the cleanliness issues - they rudely told us not to speak with their team as they only speak Portuguese. The team began applying filler over the mould in the bathroom instead of removing it fully & painted over the walls where there was dirt. They continuously entered the property unannounced over a few hour period.
A few days later we heard vermin behind the bedroom wall. There was a hatch on the wall which had been taped up so I’m assuming this wasn’t the first time this property had vermin. We sent video evidence and the only solution of this host was to send pest control while we were still in the property. Issues like this are to be resolved when no guests are staying. The hosts have 31 listings and easily could have moved us to another place while this issue was inspected. Some of their properties were — we checked.
Instead, the hosts accused us of lying about all of the issues. We lasted 4 nights in this property out of a total of 2 weeks, at which point we finally caved and decided to leave the property.
It seems these hosts are well versed in skewing the narrative in their favour with Airbnb support. As such, we ended up in a multi-day dispute with Airbnb support over the phone and chat where we were informed of the ongoing “mediation” with the hosts.
Airbnb informed us that pest control would be sent to the property the morning after we left. I argued with Airbnb over the dishonesty of these hosts and that nothing they do or say can be taken at face value. That their corrupt approach would likely lead to them covering up any evident rodent issue.
Since I didn’t trust them, I decided to check the apartment myself. When I arrived, there were over 8 team members in the property at one point. I could hear power tools. It was pretty clear to me what was happening — the team were covering up the vermin issue before calling in pest control. The team would not allow me to enter, although at this point, we were still paying for the listing. The hosts claimed that it was cleaning due to COVID, but you do not need 8 people to clean a small space like this.
While outside the property, Airbnb finally called me to offer an “extenuating circumstance” refund for the days not stayed in the property. The hosts never owned up to the issues.
Staying in this property or with these hosts would not be recommended to my worst enemy.
I’m happy to be contacted for video and photographic evidence of our experience in this property.