TL;DR: If you are an asthmatic or even remotely concerned about air quality, this is not the place for you.
This is a well-photographed and nicely made-up damp basement. Yes it's pretty looking, yes it's cheap. No it's not worth it.
This place (almost) ruined our stay in porto. We were just coming down from a pretty nasty bronchitis and were looking forward to our first vacation in a long time. We were looking for cozy and comfy.
Instead, we arrived at the place to find it damp and cold. So damp in fact, that there's a tiny dehumidifier unit in the apartment, which told us it was 95% humidity when we turned it on the first time. Over the next seven days, and with the dehumidifier in continuous operation, we only managed to get it down to 75%. This included changing its finicky and moldy water tank every couple of hours.
Speaking of mold, the place stinks of it. Every drawer in the kitchen, every single piece of plentiful and built-in storage space, the extra blanket in a cupboard, the fold-out couch, everything stinks of mold.
It's apparent the moment you walk into the door, and the only reason we didn't leave immediately is because we could not afford to get a hotel room.
Stupidly, we did not get Airbnb involved before the 24h deadline ran out, but we did get a refund and half our money back.
Also, the house next door is a gigantic construction site. Work starts at 8:00 am and continues until 5pm. The noise originated almost exactly next to the bed in the loft, and consists of hammering, drilling, and sawing. According to another review, this has been going on since at least May 2019. The host did not see fit to keep track of this, and did not inform us. When asked, they stated that they did not know this was still going on.
Other tidbits:
- The duvet cover for the bed is made up of multiple thinner blankets, and one thin white sheet as a barrier between skin and blankets. That sheet appears to get washed regularly, I'm almost certain that those other blankets do not
- There was only one filled soap dispenser in the apartment for three faucets
- Internet was bad-to-okay and even after freeing the router out of its little cupboard, getting a connection in the lofted bedroom space was difficult
- The shower, while hot and very powerful, has a very small tank which runs out pretty quickly. For us, it lasted for one-and-a-half showers
- The shower also does not drain quickly, and at least in one case almost overflowed the shower tub
- We encountered multiple black drain flies around the bathroom and bedroom area, and multiple smears of smashed insects on the walls of the rest of the apartment
- The neighborhood lost power for a couple of hours one night, there are no flashlights or lighters in the apartment