The only good thing about this place is the location as the tram and bus stops are just outside and there are many restaurants and grocery stores nearby. We'd rented this place for 30 days.
The apartment itself is filthy and listed by a rental agency that’s run by Diogo.
The apartment is filthy and is managed by a rental agency run by Diogo. He’s no host and doesn’t care which is evident from his indifference towards you.
My husband and I first entered the apartment with a man called Fred who seemed friendly. The first thing we noticed was dust and dirt in every corner, the dining table's tablecloth was sliced up with a blade and the blade was still on the table. The workstation area which is next to the kitchen was being used like a broom closet and was packed with a broom, mop and bucket, vacuum cleaner, a huge shopping cart from Pingo Doce and the room itself hadn't been cleaned. Later on Diogo told us that this is how the previous "renters" were using it so he left it like that for us.
- The kitchen cupboards were dusty and had some kind of wooden panels stored in them.
- The oven didn't seem to have been cleaned since the day it was installed.
- No scissors
- No oven mitts
- No Dishwasher capsules
- No extra dustbin bags, only the ones already lining the dustbins
- No storage containers
- Chipped plates
- Old pasta stuck to the server
- Dirty ladle
This place is listed for 6 people, but even the kitchen just has 4 cups. The bed in the second bedroom is a single. The sofa-cum-bed in the living room is stained, the cushion covers are old and frayed. The rubber lining of the living room window should have been replaced a long time ago as it prevents it from closing properly. The carpet is in such a state that you can’t tell the colours any more.
It's impossible to sit on the living room sofa without getting back cramps as you just sink in.
The bathrooms are clean, but the larger one with the tub, stinks of rotting garbage. I found a review from 2018 which spoke of the same problem and that it was going to be fixed. If you want to put the hand shower on the hook, the water flow stops. All the taps in the house are tight so you have to be careful when opening them, especially the kitchen one because the counter immediately gets soaked.
The bedroom floors and cupboards were dusty as if they hadn't been cleaned after the last people left. All this made us wonder when the blankets were last washed.
Fred said he was afraid of informing Diogo of all these things so I asked him to get the place cleaned. The cleaners came in a couple of hours and only swept and mopped the kitchen, living space and the bedroom cupboards. I had to clean the workstation area myself and we didn’t even bother asking for supplies and bought toilet paper, toilet cleaner, dishwasher capsules, kitchen roll and we left extra for the people who come next. The only things we asked for was a pair of scissors and tablecloth. These were delivered 6 days after we checked-in.
We couldn't move out even if we wanted to because we didn't like whatever was available in our budget so we'd decided to make this work.
A little over two weeks later, it started raining very heavily around 6am and the workstation room flooded with water from the floor(floor board broke away letting water in) and the light fixtures in the ceiling. Luckily I was awake and was able to save our laptops and other things on the table. This exposed the rotting wood and mold. Electricity for this part of the house had to be cut off for the rest of our stay.
After we checked out, Diogo sent me a message with his review of me that read like a warning, saying if I write a review, his review saying that we were difficult and required 24/7 support would become public. He sent me an SMS in Portuguese and even spoke in Portuguese when my Airbnb profile doesn't list that as a language I speak. It just goes to show that he doesn't even take the time to know who is staying there, it's all about the money. Wasn't Airbnb supposed to be about a host and a guest?