Ramon may once have been a gracious airbnb host, but unfortunately he has been burned one too many times and has morphed into something else entirely. I suppose having so many properties on the site for such a long time, he has become somewhat jaded.
After choosing the flat and paying on airbnb, we were emailed an extremely long set of terms and conditions, with various phrases such as 'THIS IS NOT A HOTEL', capitalised, outlining acceptable behaviour and rules and regulations (ironically, rather more like a traditional hotel's terms and conditions than anything I'd seen on airbnb before). The long and short of it was, he was asking for a €150 cash 'key deposit' to be returned on checkout, a €20-€60 fee to check in outside the hours of 5pm - 8pm, and a similar fee to check out outside the hours of 8am - 11am - and he was asking for all this *after* we had already paid, once it was clear he offered *no* refund if we found any of the terms unacceptable. But fine, I thought, a host has to defend himself, and I am clearly dealing with an unhappy professional rather than someone simply looking to share their flat whilst they're out of the city.
The day we arrived in Barcelona, he offered us to check in between 1pm and 1:30pm for free - presumeably because it fitted in better with his schedule. This didn't work out for us but he tried his best to persuade us to do it anyway, and got quite pushy. He was quite annoyed with me when I didn't reply for half an hour to a text he sent. When we finally met him (after a day of carrying our luggage around) he ushered us into the flat and went on to rant about previous airbnb guests. At one point he did a quite offensive impression of a pair of Japanese guests. During the tirade he asked us at least twice to leave him a good review. Then he went on to, in fairness, give us a quite thorough introduction to the usual tourist spots, but by this time we wanted him to leave us in peace. I was struck with the hypocisy of it - he feels able to send us terms and conditions, request us to behave like quiet little church mice, and yet still is unable to act with an ounce of professionalism on his side. I felt we were suspected of being nightmare guests before even setting foot in the place.
On to the flat. It is, unfortunately, just as tired and jaded as Ramon. The walls are scuffed and in need of a lick of paint, the cupboards tricky to open, the sofa tattered, and the bathroom door (located immediately next to one bed and about five steps from the other) does not close properly. There were no bin bags and no washing up liquid when we arrived. But above all of these things, the flat is *small*. Do not let the pictures deceive you. It is a *tiny* studio flat. Probably about 20 meters squared. The bed and the sofa and mere feet from each other. There is very little natural light. The bathroom door is very thin - whilst one of you makes a deposit the other will hear every muscle strain and grunt. There is nowhere to hide from the sound. The flat is too small. The photos are misleading. This is false advertising and not acceptable. And this is not normal for Barcelona - much more spacious flats can be found for the same price on airbnb. Here is one example - https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/37203599?source_impression_id=p3_1567151418_zQdQG3SR7ZE7NZQO
Overall, an incredibly disappointing way to waste €250