There is no other way to say it. We feel deeply duped and aggrieved. FIRST OF ALL, this “apartment” is not a penthouse as what its host had led us to believe via their pictures, listing description, Airbnb messages, phone conversation from the host before we arrived and his in-person introduction at the “apartment” – it is not even an apartment fit for residential use. It is on the top floor of an 8-storey commercial building in a business district where the “neighbours” comprise of offices on levels 2 to 4, two clinics on levels 5 and 7, and a commercial kitchen on level 6. We only realised this when we saw the directory listing outside the lift on the ground floor and we reaffirmed this when we climbed the stairs. There is even an empty slot for the host’s “apartment” on that directory. There is NOBODY staying in the building because it is not a “residential community” as what the host claimed it to be. All the adjacent buildings along the street are also office buildings. The “apartment” itself looks like a former office that had been converted into an Airbnb apartment. There are many holes on the floor tiles in the “living room” which seem to suggest that the “living room” was formerly partitioned into office cubicles like some of the offices within the building. The remaining 4 rooms in the pictures seem to be former office rooms too. Room A is the “master bedroom” with an attached toilet and bathroom, Room B is the room with two beds and Room C is next to Room B. We were initially puzzled why all the “bedroom” doors have translucent panels in the pictures. Only when we arrived and settled down did we realise that they are office doors! The two panels on the outside wall of Room C are not mirrors as we believed but translucent glass panels that are common in offices too! In fact, Rooms B and C also have dark office cabinets that line their walls and which cannot be accessed where they are blocked by the beds. Room B also has an office display cabinet just right behind the head ends of the beds. Unfortunately, all that only became apparent to us when we moved in. Room D is the “rooftop” “bedroom” which seems to be another former office space. Although it can be locked, however, there is no way to lock the door at the stairway leading to the rooftop, so anyone within the building can access the rooftop any time. In fact, the common door on the ground level is open from 9am to 9pm, so anyone on the streets can also access the rooftop because there is no security within the building. Imagine walking out of Room D and coming face to face with some random stranger! Needless to say, we did not occupy Room D at all and two of us ended up having to share Room B instead. The host had installed a camera outside the “apartment” and there are about 2 other cameras of different makes installed by their respective office / clinic owners on two other levels, but there are no other cameras on all the other levels, let alone a CCTV or any security guard as claimed by the host. In fact, the rooftop has two huge water tanks / power generators that are not shown in the pictures. What kind of penthouse has such things on their rooftop? To be sure, we even checked with our taxi drivers and none of them had ever heard of any buildings in Taiwan that housed an apartment on the top floor and offices on all the other floors. We only stopped short of checking with the workers in the building and the shop on the ground floor, as well as those in the adjacent buildings. Office buildings and residential buildings are built for different purposes with different building requirements. There is a reason why office buildings are not suitable for use as accommodation. We feel so greatly misled and it ruined our holiday plans on so many levels. We were so looking forward to staying in a penthouse apartment for once and we were willing to pay extra for it, but it turned out to be an office-turned-apartment with a rooftop office-space-turned-apartment with zero security and not fit for purpose! SECOND, we had stayed in various Airbnb apartments before but never had we felt so insecure and concerned about our personal safety. Imagine what could have happened if there was an emergency after working hours and we cannot use the lift, e.g. fire or earthquake. The stairs are very steep and narrow, there are no neighbours after working hours and we have a 70+ lady and a 60+ lady travelling with us – and the host knew this because he asked me for the ages of our group way before our arrival. If this had been a real penthouse apartment, we could at least seek immediate help from the neighbours. Would the fire department be as quick to respond and rush into the building to save anybody if they believe it is an office building and everybody would have knocked off work, and especially if it had happened on a weekend (we stayed 6 nights at the place), not realising that there are actually people staying on the top floor waiting to be rescued? THIRD, we cannot comment on the legality of this place for residential use without the necessary information, but we were very baffled when the host insisted that we provide a very different address in our customs declaration forms upon arrival at the airport. We did not follow his instructions as we would have been guilty of making a false customs declaration, an act that is punishable by law in any country. Looking back, that might explain why the host told us that the listing is a multi-million penthouse apartment in a very rich neighbourhood whose...