WE GOT BURGLED
Nice apartment, in a brilliant location right in the centre of Malaga (5 minute walk to numerous great restaurants and 15 minute walk to the beach).
However, the positives end there. Unfortunately on day 5 of our 17 night stay, we were burgled whilst out for the day. All of my wife’s jewellery was stolen (combine value of over £1,000) and we also had 170 Euros in cash taken.
As soon as we realised (about 8.30pm), we phoned the emergency number that Solaga had given us, and we were told that another apartment in the block (also rented via Airbnb by Solaga). We later found out that the people staying at this property had two expensive watches stolen. Whilst initially Solaga were relatively helpful, for example they changed the locks the following morning, their attitude towards the situation and the way they dealt with us as customers was disappointing.
Whilst the property locked when closing the door (both the door to the property on the first floor and the main door to the building on the ground floor), after the incident we were told by Solaga that because we did not double lock the apartment, we left ourselves at risk. Although we were given many instructions during our check-in, not once were we told of the importance of double locking both doors.
Solaga said that they did not tell guests to double lock the doors because it is ‘so obvious’ and everyone in Spain does so, failing to appreciate the existence of cultural differences. Nor myself, my wife, or our two friends (all intelligent individuals) had thought it necessary to double lock the doors, and nor did the people in the other apartment that got burgled. Based on that sample, Solaga are clearly mistaken as to how ‘obvious’ it is.
When reporting the details of the incident the following day at the Solaga offices they were unsympathetic, unapologetic and the main person in charge even quite rude. As well as being very defensive when we asked questions about who had access to keys etc, preferring to shift the focus on whether we left any windows open (which we didn’t - but even if we did, it would be virtually impossible for someone to access a 1st floor apartment through the window), and the fact the property was not double locked.
Either incidents like this are very uncommon and the need to double lock the doors is a bit of a smokescreen, or these incidents are fairly frequent and Solaga should tell their guests to double lock the doors - they didn’t seem to appreciate that they couldn’t have it both ways.
Additionally they offered no compensation, nor did they speak to the owner to enquire whether they would like to offer us any compensation, despite us requesting that they do so more than once.
It would have been very easy for Solaga’s approach to the whole situation to have been better, and even a token offer of a nominal amount of compensation would have gone a long way, and been of little cost to Solaga.
Having things stolen from your Airbnb is obviously not a nice experience and made us feel very unsafe, particularly for 1 night which we had to endure before the locks were changed.
Whilst we had a brilliant time in Malaga, and I’m sure Solaga have some very nice people working for them, for the above reasons, we would recommend avoiding this apartment and any other apartment rented by Solaga.