When I book an airbnb property I look at the photos of the property and read the past reviews to decide if it is the property that I want to stay in. For this property the photos show a bright entrance flanked by lush green plants, and a stairwell that is well lit, well cared for and maintained. It shows an apartment that is well furnished.
Imagine how disappointing it was to arrive to a completely different picture. The photos of the entry to the building inside and up the stairs are clearly staged or taken in a time when the property was in a far greater state of care and maintenance.
What I actually arrived to is a badly looked after and poorly maintained entry and stairwell. The pots where the plants once stood are just empty pots filled with soil (to be honest the entry is so dim that there is no way that most indoor plants would survive there), the stairwell walls are dirty and the paint is peeling from some of the walls and some parts of the ceilings from water ingress. One of the sensors for a light going up the stairs was hanging from the wall presumably by the wires.
I don’t think it is unfair to expect the photographs of the property to be a true reflection of the property at the time that I am occupying it. The photographs of this property are not a true reflection.
The apartment itself was clean and the host has taken some care to provide coffee, tea, and snacks as well as other kitchen essentials. She provided plenty of towels as well as toilet paper and soap etc. It was good to have a washer and dryer as we were staying for two weeks it was useful. It was however full of dry towels, tea towels etc on our arrival (presumably from the previous occupant).
The host was responsive to messages and helpful with making check in easy.
There is a huge amount of neglect that is obvious which makes your stay slightly uncomfortable. The floors are in such a bad state of repair that at times I was afraid my foot might go right through them. The “noise cancelling” windows provide very little in the way of noise reduction and like the rest of the building need maintenance and cleaning.
The lounge itself would have been more comfortable if there had been a coffee table, or even end tables as sitting down to have a cup of tea isn’t great when there isn’t even a table to set it down on. The coffee table by the way had obviously been broken at some stage and was sitting on the top of the dryer on our arrival.
Perhaps you wouldn’t notice this if you were only staying a couple of nights, but we stayed for 2 weeks and it wasn’t the most pleasant stay having to walk through the poorly maintained stairwell every time we entered and left the building and the somewhat poor maintenance evident in the apartment itself.
If I could post photos in a review I would do so.
I wouldn’t stay here again.