I pay a lot of attention to reviews and descriptions so I hope that whomever reads this takes away a true and honest accounting of our experience with FeelFree rentals and this particular apartment we rented (Muinoa #5).
To begin with, I very much liked the looks of the apartment. It fitted our 3 person travel needs for a four night stay in Basque Country. I read the reviews, understood what was on offer and did my due diligence on the basis of the info presented in the listing. Coming from the US, where we are all used to constant airconditioning in homes, I remember pausing for a second on the no air conditioning mention but as I have Basque friends, I know it is unusual for there to even be air conditioning as the weather of the region is such that it is always cool rather than hot.
Having said that, I was okay with the fact that the listing stated that the apartment came equipped with fans which I imagined at time of reading to be standard floor (tower shaped fans - like those that are common nowadays).
So, here's what happened, we prepaid over 1270 for 4 nights and arrived in the middle of a terrible heatwave. The apartment has a rectangular shaped configuration, is located on a first floor and contains two bedrooms, one which is a double and another which is a single. It is full of light due to the large windows that run the periphery of the flat on the living room/dining room and single room side and there are also windows in the larger double bedroom. Walking into the apartment was beyond stifling. The temperature outside was over 100 degrees Fahrenheit and indoors it was at 95. We quickly felt it was near impossible to remain there as it was. There is a window by the dining room table (large French door like type of window) the table is placed such that we had to pull it in order to even access the door like opening. All windows by the way have shades that work with a pulley mechanism to bring them down or up. First we tried bringing down the shade as much heat was coming in through there but decided that it was better to just open as it gave cross current for whatever wind there might be. Opening it up, granted no relief wind-wise and it exposes whomever is in the apartment to people looking in as they go down some steps in a walkway that is directly in front. Further there is yet another walkway for pedestrian traffic to the right of the first walkway. I made eye contact with several pedestrians as they walked by my level. I mention this because to leave any windows open, for any period of time, felt unsafe and left us with ZERO privacy. In the meantime, my husband looked for the FANS. There was only one tower fan just as I had imagined (I have similar), this fan had, at a one meter distance from it, no reach in its capacity to fan or cool. I was sitting right in front of it and could hardly feel any air. It was useless. So I called FeelFree Rentals. A nice lady answered, she acknowledged that the blind I mentioned prior was non-functional which meant that there was no way of giving us privacy even IF the temperature had been cooler (the pedestrian walkways were not going anywhere) and had been in a position to close the windows.
She told us about the fan, I said we had it up and running but that it did nothing to alleviate the situation which was dire to say the least in terms of the oppressive heat. I would hazard to say that we would have needed multiple fans to even make a difference in any of the rooms let alone the one extra fan she said she could "perhaps" supply us with the next day.
I was feeling nauseous and we were all sweating profusely. I asked two things, could they accommodate us elsewhere and did they have more fans? She had a place she said much further away and only one bedroom. We are traveling with our 17 year old son and this wouldn't do for us I told her. What about the fans that were supposed to be here I asked? "Well, we couldn't really get you a second one until Monday" (we'd arrived on Sunday afternoon). But this one doesn't even work I said. I'm sorry there is nothing I can do was her response. We cannot remain here I replied. If you have nothing else to offer us I will HAVE to move, I kid you not when I say that we were all feeling ill inside this flat. I take a moment to explain that my son is doing an internship with NASA. He is on a team studying something called the urban heat island effect. For this purpose he has been traveling with a mercury thermometer everywhere on our spain travels. While I am trying to deal with FeelFree and trying to find us alternate accommodations, we have opened all windows and after two hours of just sitting in the dining room area (we wanted to disturb nothing in the apartment as we realized we would be FORCED to leave since it was impossible to remain there), we took a reading which I photographed in the single room as we were about to leave. It was 34 degrees celsius or 91 degrees Fahrenheit and that is what it had COOLED DOWN TO with windows having been left open during that near 2 hour period that we remained on the premises.
I asked several times what would happen and explained to the lady on the phone whom I interacted with 3 times that it was an untenable situation. That I understood that they had no control over the weather and