This is a really nice house in a great location for accessing the Nacka nature reserve. I’ve stayed here before and got along well with the owner. Unfortunately this time my stay wasn’t so pleasant.
Uffe was renting to a couple on a longer term basis -outside of AirBnB. They were very hostile on my arrival, in the absence of the owner. They took exception when I said I would isolate and take a corona test, as per Swedish Covid 19 guidelines. I think because they didn’t want to follow the guidelines themselves, or be asked to isolate if I were to test positive (I tested negative on day three). “We don’t believe in Corona virus” they said. The hostility continued when they said the next day: “why don’t you get a place on your own?” and demanded that I go with them to speak to the owner, eventually Uffe intervened as he was in the next room.
On arrival Uffe said there was no breakfast, but would get some, a few days later he said he would stop breakfast because his guests were long-term, offering a 500 SEK note as compensation for breakfasts for my three-week stay. I accepted, though I thought it was a bit on the low side. I started to realise the house was very dirty, I cleaned the shared bathroom myself as it was pretty unhygienic. Raising this with Uffe on the morning I left, he apologised that there had been no cleaning for some months.
Uffe warned me about the two guests (a couple from Germany) “They will try and convert you” he told me. Sure enough they did become more vocal about their anti-lockdown, anti-facemask and vaccine-sceptic views. They told me they had come to Sweden to escape the lockdown in Germany and pursue their activism in Stockholm.
Uffe was somewhat critical of Corona policy but less extreme than his guests “It's really overblown” he said. He wanted me to have dinner with them, I declined with a polite excuse. Uffe didn’t appear to appreciate how uncomfortable this might be for other guests, or that it may have been a good idea to mention it before arrival. Given that he knew how extreme their behaviour was, I think he could have acted to prevent it getting further out of hand.
I was able to enjoy Stockholm outside of the house and use my own skis in the forest, which was wonderful. I avoided conflict by being outside and staying in my room more, but would have liked to use the communal areas more.
Four days before I left, the couple started up again at breakfast, asking: ”Would I take the vaccine?” when I answered “Yes” they started to argue very aggressively. I was trying to finish my breakfast and was backing out of the door, I felt attacked for answering their question with a very moderate/ mainstream view. The man gestured aggressively to his laptop screen: “look at the graphs, .. you won’t look at the graphs, are you scared?”. The tone of the conversation was beyond just expressing a view -it was very antagonistic. I remember thinking “jeez, I’m actually paying for this”.
I told Uffe straight after I’d gotten free of it, I told him that I felt harassed in a shared space in the house. I said I no longer have fair access to the kitchen with the other guests using it for their campaign work, filling the table with two laptops. He offered me to sit in his office to eat breakfast, which is advertised as a really nice looking living room on the Airbnb website. The reality is that this is now his office where he works each day and a storage space full of boxes, books and papers. It’s was a real mess in there. I did try to use it the following morning and there was even more stuff on the sofa and table.
For a while the other guests went away and it was easier, but when they came back they continued to take the kitchen -closing the kitchen door and taking over the table for their campaign against the lockdown. They were organising a demonstration in the city.
It was an accumulation of bad experiences really: The harassment by the guests, Uffe’s failure to warn me and get on top of that. The lack of cleaning (while displaying ‘enhanced cleaning’ in the advert). The lack of breakfast, the false picture of the living room. I felt like I’d been taken for a ride. I reached out to Uffe for a refund. He offered me 2000 SEK cash. I’d had such a bad time that I asked for a refund of half the fee (it was by the time I left, the worst hotel/ BnB experiences I’d ever had). He accepted but it turned out this was conditional that I didn’t mention it to AirBnB, so he withdrew from any refund.
To clarify I had reached out to BnB initially to register a complaint against the other guests, but because they asked me more questions that turned into a wider enquiry by AirBnB.