A DANGER FOR TOURISTS AND MADRID. RUINED OUR VACATION.
1. The apartment is functioning illegally, without legal agreements from the city council of Madrid. This was told us by Maria after us paying and is written specifically on the inside of the apartment's door. We were invited to pose as the host's friends to the authorities, and lie about our situation as tourists renting an airbnb.
2.After paying for the listed apartment, we were given an address by the Airbnb platform. Shortly after, we were contacted by Maria, and she let us know that the apartment is located at another address, that is not conform to the Airbnb Regulations and neither approved to function by the Madrid City Council. We had already paid for the apartment and could not wait for Airbnb to refund our money and search for another apartment, since our plane would depart on the second day.
3.Although we specially requested for the apartment to be very clean and disinfected (especially considering the ongoing pandemic), and were assured by the host that the Apartment would be "squeaky clean", it could have not been further from the truth. Not only were the cutlery, the appliances, the furniture dirty/unwashed/unhygienic/greasy, the apartment itself was old and obviously heavily used. The baths truly NEED to be renovated, the many objects used to decorate the house were covered in think layers of dust, and many of the appliances and the furniture were in no state to be used. Not even the breadcrumbs left by the previous renters on the kitchen counter were cleaned. We showed it all to the host the second day as we asked her to come by and check why even the first person to walk into that shower the first night, had to rinse off their long hair and body with freezing cold water. (This issue was also left unsolved, by her just telling us that the water boiler is really small). Even the cutlery and the kitchenware it was placed in were all dirty and even rusty - very dangerous to human health.
4. The most grave problem that we were not warned about is that the apartment door is NOT suitable for tourists, and we were not warned about how it functions, specifically, that it self closes, and if the keys are left in the inside lock, (as one might go out to take out the trash) I couldn't open it anymore, even though I HAD the other key set ON ME. This is how me and my entire family who were out in the city were left locked out of the apartment, with the keys in our pockets. On the many papers put on the door, on the smallest one, it barely says not to leave the keys in the inside lock, nevertheless saying what would happen if one might do so. Announcing the host about what happened, they sent a team of key smiths who asked us for 400 EUR in advance to open the door. We initially refused, being shocked by the asked price we had to pay, even before them opening the door, but were eventually left with no other choice but to call another team of key smiths recommended by our countries embassy in Madrid, and pay them as well - In order to avoid ruining our 5 days vacation by running in between the city council and police stations, besides having to pay for another hotel as well.
5. The host left us alone on the streets at night, until 01:15 am, and would not would not respond to our texts. Her next encounter with us was one day prior to our supposed check out, shallowly asking us by text when we would leave the apartment - not even having asked us IF we had managed to get back into the apartment, where all our stuff was.