Antonio is a lovely host, friendly, helpful and treats you like family. His place is beautifully decorated with art and reminds me of my childhood. He was always willing to offer me help with laundry and allowed me to make myself feel at home.
Unfortunately, and this hurts me to do this, I must mention one thing that was not mentioned in the listing and it’s that Antonio smokes in his bedroom and that he has been smoking in the apartment for what feels like a long time. So when I first entered the apartment, I immediately felt this cold, stale, “third hand” smoke smell that was coming from all surfaces of the apartment. The walls, the ceilings, the rugs, the wood, the curtains, the lamp shades, the books, etc. I’m very sensitive to smoke smells and felt uncomfortable staying in my room with this smell coming from everywhere. Even my clothes and items I places in the cupboard absorbed the smell and I had to wash them to try and get rid of it. I went to the store to buy €10 worth of room odour sprays for furniture and I sprayed it on all the materials to neutralise the smell and I took cleaning products and washed the floors, the walls and all other surfaces. This helped a lot but did not get rid of it. At one point I felt like looking for another replace to stay but at this time of the year in Lisbon at such short notice, I could not find anything else within my budget that worked. So my stay provided me with what I needed but it was uncomfortable at most times and I spent more time cleaning than enjoying the space. It put me into a light depression for the time I was there and I was not coping well with my mindset on a daily basis because that old, stale smoke smell made me feel suffocated and bogged down.
I brought this to Antonio’s attention and said to him that he needs to either place a warning on his Airbnb listing or that he needs to have the apartment professionally cleaned and to only smoke by his window in his room with the door closed. I told him I will not be the only person who will complain about this. So I think he has gradually taken steps to rectify this, clean his house bit by bit, and I trust that he will want his visitors’ best interests at heart. I don’t want to cause conflict with this because I think he was simply not aware of it and that it could be such a problem. He is a lovely guy and I would happily stay with him again if the smoke and smell could be taken care of.