***COCKROACHES & UNRESPONSIBLE ATTITUDE ***
The absolute worst experience on our Andalusian trip.
Malaga is our third destination and we've been happy to have found a place with a great location and good prices in this city too. But our Airbnb experience soon turned to be nightmarish for two reasons: the gigantic cockroaches in the apartment and the host's attitude.
The encounter: After only a couple of hours spent in the apartment we saw a huge (6-8 cm) cockroach above our heads crawling on the curtain. It was surely disgusting and managed to eliminate it with the vacuum cleaner. But of course, when there is one, there are many, so 20 minutes later another pest came forward in the kitchen! (Given the fact that it's a studio apartment, you really feel like being surrounded by them.) Now, the problem is not only that they are present, but they were huge and all over the place, so by trying to avoid vacuum cleaning and fearing them crawling on your body at night, we have decided to leave the place and contact Airbnb Customer Service Center.
They were very understanding and helpful, trying to mitigate the unpleasant situation of not wanting to share your place with cockroaches and leaving your accommodation at 3 am at night. We had to find a new place to stay (which was almost impossible), call a taxi and pay an extra amount of money for the last-minute check-in. Quite stressful, isn't it? Yet, we took the time and shared the details correctly with our hosts and offered kindly the possibility to talk in the morning about what happened exactly.
And here comes the second part of our total disappointment:
We received no response from the hosts for two days(!!!): no apology, no single attempt to soothe the discomfort of the experience of discussing possible coping mechanisms for future reference. Instead, we had a system alert from the host requesting money for cleaning. Taking the time of proving towels left hanged and a couple of unwashed dishes with pictures and demanding a fee. Well, excuse us, if we did not have the time to take care of all of this at 3 am, distressed.
However, this was the moment when we learned the real attitude of our host. When we strongly declined her demand, she responded in a totally unacceptable, phlegmatic way, with no honest intention to close the case in a civilized manner.
Her arguments:
First, she resented us, for not offering the possibility for them to solve the problem. On one hand, we do not understand what they would have done. Come in during the day and register a full extermination protocol, or what? On the other hand, we left a completely correct message right in the hour of our departure, but they did not take the chance to talk, only to blame everything on us. Lastly, if Airbnb decided to support our case (after one hour of being on the phone with them), I assume the host could at least give it a try and talk to us in a cooperative manner.
Second, she started to talk down on us, how cockroaches are part of the biological world, and which response was completely out of line. Yes, they definitely are but the experience of the meeting depends on the context. They are not that pleasant to be met in your to-be-expected clean apartment, above your head for instance. Knowing for sure probably more is to come. She asked whether we would have fled from a mosquito. No, of course not, but 6-8n cm long cockroaches, YES! I could also ask totally unproductive questions like: Are flies in your soup acceptable? The answer would be no, right?
Finally, she also argued, that since she's managing 40-something apartments as a host, she must know all this better than us and it was just ridiculous. The very nature of her unprofessionalism says a thousand words about how an apartment or a situation like this can be mismanaged. Even one single occasion like this can prove her to be a quack in spite of her performance in numbers. Does any of this validate the situation of her behaviour? I strongly believe that it doesn't echo the right response to a situation like this, but rather her standard of hygiene.
Our understanding:
Cockroaches are likely to appear in flats in countries with a Mediterranian climate. (Not that we found any other in urban flats in other Andalusian cities, but anyway) But as a host, you can have many ways to handle it.
1) Let the future guests know that it might occur despite of the host's best intentions and prevention.
2) If you don't claim your efforts and have complaints about it afterwards, handle the situation in a professional, compassionate way and definitely do not counterattack your guests.
In conclusion, Lu&Cia's apartment was the most disappointing part of our stay in Malaga, but I remain neutral and give the freedom to everyone deciding whether they would want to go there or not. I am sure as hell that I will not accept any discomfort like this in the future either, especially will not tolerate a disrespectful and incorrect host looking only for money and the reassurance of her superior position.