We stayed here for 12 nights in Aug 2022. By day 8, we were seriously considering checking out and into a hotel or just going back home. It’s difficult to do an overall review of this property, without breaking it down into three parts:
The Exterior Areas
Nothing to fault at all. The location is great, just 10 minutes to Pollensa and Puerto Pollensa, in a fairly rural but quiet location with wonderful mountain views. The drive up to the villa is quite narrow so those with wide cars may struggle. The outdoor area was great. Good size pool, in good condition, lovely outside dining area (also good for working during the day). Barbecue used once and no problems. Yes, there were ants outside and plenty of mosquitos but this is expected in the countryside – bring plenty of repellent.
The Interior Areas
Not as positive an experience. The best words we could use to describe it were shabby, tired and grubby. It could have done with a really good and thorough deep clean. On arrival there were dead ants throughout the bathroom. There was a cigarette smell from the curtains, the utility room stank, the shower curtains were filthy, and all the cutlery and crockery had to be washed in the dishwasher before use. Little things would have made all the difference – the bathroom tap sprayed water not only downwards but sideways therefore covering the tiled area either side of the sink; there were stains on the cloths covering the bedside tables, the two settees had grubby, rough textured covers and the upstairs balcony, which had great potential, didn’t have any furniture which was a shame as it would’ve been lovely to sit up there and admire the amazing view. The layout was fine, it was big enough for the five of us, and having three bathrooms was certainly positive. However the main problem was with ants. I can understand them being outside, but to have them in both the bedrooms in the main house, crawling all over the beds while we slept is unacceptable, and something we’ve never encountered in our many stays at the same time of year in villas in this area. My wife was woken up at 3am by ants crawling on her face, found them in her ear, and pulled back the bed sheet to find (and we counted them!) 30 of the blighters crawling around her. We also found hundreds of ants crawling around the main wardrobe where we kept our clothes – we genuinely had ants in our pants, dead and alive. A really off-putting experience – it felt like a Bushtucker Trial.
The owner (Cosme)
We had a number of issues during our stay. As well as the ant situation mentioned above, the roof leaked during a thunderstorm, and on a separate occasion either the dishwasher or kitchen sink leaked causing one part of the kitchen to flood (we aren’t plumbers so we don’t know which). I fully admit, these latter issues were outside of the owner’s control. On each occasion Cosme attended the same day, which was very reassuring, within a couple of hours. He also brought a new shower curtain and a dish rack. However his attitude was a problem. Whenever he came, he was very defensive. For example, he seemed to blame us for causing or inventing the leak in the kitchen because, after spending 20 minutes trying to replicate it, he couldn’t find a leak. He stated that it was our fault as we must have overfilled the kitchen sink when washing up, which we had not done, but he refused to believe us. He said the ants only came into the house after the thunderstorm, but this wasn’t the case – they were there from the first day, and the thunderstorm took place on Day 4. He also sprayed a very strong smelling spray to deal with the ants, but when that subsequently caused my wife to have an asthma attack (10 hours later, after airing the room out all day), he implied we had made her asthma attack up.
Towards the end of our stay, he offered us a refund of 20%, which we were grateful for and accepted (I’m providing the detail so you can understand the position). However, we disagreed as to whether this was 20% of what we had paid, or 20% of what he had received (given Airbnb take their commission). In raising that dispute with him, his attitude turned nasty – accusing me of being “dishonourable”, having “constantly complained” and most oddly, of having a “very serious face”. Ultimately, we had to contact Airbnb and they refunded to us the amount in dispute.
Would we stay in the villa again? Only if internally there was a deep clean and overhaul of soft furnishings. Would we stay in a villa run by Cosme again? I’m sorry to say, we would not. As well as the experience above, you will see from other reviews on Airbnb and other booking sites of this property or others of his, that whenever a negative review is posted, Cosme subsequently posts a detailed diatribe blaming them for their attitudes or for having unreasonably high standards. I’m expecting him to do the same here.