We arrived to Mr. Yakup’s apartment around 7:30 pm on the evening of June 27, 2022, from the Istanbul airport.
Upon arrival to Mr. Yakup’s apartment we discovered that the apartment building was not accessible by car. The street is closed to traffic, and we had to drag our luggage for about 50 meters. Once in front of the building, we called Mr. Yakup on WhatsApp, but we could not communicate with him because he does not speak any English besides “Hello”, “How are you?”, etc. We started communicating by using Google translate and WhatsApp. This was frustrating. We were all tired; therefore, we checked in quickly and asked Mr. Yakup to leave the keys and told him that we will contact him if we need anything.
Once Mr. Yakup left, we started finding our way around the apartment and discovered many flaws ranging from minor to life threatening problems. We tried to call him, but again communicating with him was very difficult because he did not speak English. Therefore, we decided to contact Airbnb because our safety was at stake. A few minutes after we contacted Airbnb, Mr. Yakup sent us a very aggressive message via WhatsApp, saying “I trusted you and didn't book my flat for anyone, didn't you look at the pictures when booking the flat for you? Haven't you read the comments of our guests from Airbnb since 2018, we have not received any complaints from them, I understand that you are a malicious person, so you are guilty of this behavior. I condemn”.
Here is a list of all the problems in order from minor to major/life threatening:
•	The apartment has only one air conditioning unit in the living room, which makes the living room very cold while the bedrooms stay hot and stuffy.
•	The air conditioning remote control does not work; you must turn it on and off manually without being able to adjust the temperature.
•	The TV remote does not have batteries.
•	One bedroom has a very small closet with some hangers, most of them were broken; the other room had no closet and only a few shelves.
•	The apartment was listed for 7 people; it barely fits 4 people. There was no dining table, only a small table 70 cm x 70 cm with two chairs.
•	Electrical wires are running on the floor in kitchen (serious safety hazard); we took pictures of it
•	A lot of green-brownish mold is growing in the bathtub (health hazard); we took pictures of it
•	The kids’ bedroom has an exterior 25-foot gas line running on the walls with the gas valve and gas water heater over the bed (very serious life-threatening hazard); we took pictures of it
It took us 24 hours to resolve the issue with Airbnb and get a refund after deducting 2 nights; although, we only spent one terrible night in that apartment. We were glad to be out of that apartment. It was very absurd and disturbing when Mr. Yakup came to check us out. He was angry—he yelled at us, pushed and shoved us out of the apartment.