The apartment is nicely fitted out and Anna’s mother responded to request made for cooking utensils and replaced an old broken toaster. However, because Anna’s mother lives an hour and a half away it impacted on rectifying problems. In the first week of my stay I was without power when I returned home from work and had to try to locate some man with a name Anna’s mother could not remember on a floor which she could not quite remember of the apartment building. Then I had to locate a shopkeeper, whose name she didn’t know, ten shops around the corner, to try to help me. I found this very uncomfortable and I felt quite vulnerable that this was the only way I could try to access immediate help. I spent an evening in the dark, the next day Anna’s mother came while I was at work and the problem was rectified, the result of workmen disconnecting the power to the flat in the hallway. As it was my first week there I had stocked up the fridge but had to throw much of it away. By the beginning of the second month of my stay, work on the outside of the building became unbearable as several floors of scaffolding were erected outside my windows, workers walked past whenever, use of power tools further invaded any sense of well-being, the windows needed to be closed and it was dark, stuffy and noisy. The living area was particularly dark and needed electric lighting at all times during the day or you couldn’t see your way around. In the future, guests of Anna’s will not have to deal with this situation so it should not impact on their stay. From my perspective, I felt Anna should have discounted my remaining time there, so that I could have developed a more resilient and accepting attitude to my changes in circumstance. Anna was only prepared to offer a £200 discount which amounted to a net loss of about a 3% total contracted fees for my 3 month stay. I asked for a reduction that would have amounted to less than 15% loss in her overall takings, and was prepared to negotiate further, but I was told that it was now high season and that I was getting a bargain anyway. I feel this was unfair treatment of me and that, ultimately, money was the host’s most important consideration and not the welfare of her guests.