Sakala Residence

The location wasn't too bad, but getting into the building was a hassle because there was no reception. We waited two hours for the landlady to let us in. Our loft room had very low ceilings, and I could only stand up by the door. Its broken window wouldn't stay open, and with no curtains we had to cover it with cardboard at night. There was only one shower room for the whole top floor.

The building has high ceilings, so the bunk beds work well, and the hostel is fairly clean with enough bathrooms. Bed linen, tea, and coffee are free, though there's no milk. It's around a 15-minute walk from the old town. There are some real drawbacks. The corridors are strange and the place feels overcrowded, to the point that we'd probably all die in a fire. There aren't enough sockets for charging devices or places to put bags, so I had to sleep with mine in the bed. Trash bags were left in bedrooms, the whole building smelled damp, and sometimes the locks didn't work properly.

The building smelled strongly of mold everywhere, and I saw black mold in some spots. In North America, a place like this would be shut down immediately over serious health issues. It was the most horrific stay I've ever had, and I think it disrespects the idea of a hostel. The place felt more like a slum than a hostel, with every corner rented out. Even two sofas were occupied, one in the stairway, and a lady came back every afternoon to stay there, as in the photo. To reach my own "room," I had to pass through another room where four sets of bunk beds were crammed together for eight people, but ten were actually sleeping there, with two sharing some beds. In the morning it was so packed you could barely breathe. My "room" wasn't any better: just a bed with the cheapest, worn-out mattress and springs sticking out, plus a pillow that seemed 100 years old, maybe one of the first Ikea products, as in the photo. There was a bar below and another next to the place. Drunk people shouted in the street until 6AM, and a big construction project next door carried on even on weekends, so sleeping was out of the question.

AVOID. The rooms are dirtier than the landlady's knickers! I can't do justice to how disgusting this place was. Two nights in a concentration camp would have been more pleasant, and the beds would have had fewer diseases. The live-in manager, who is also the landlady, was like a female Hitler. Seeing her car-crash face when I woke up two mornings in a row made the whole experience even worse. They call it a hostel, but if you breathe in the communal area after 10pm, that female Hitler comes storming out of her room and flaps her bingo wings at you. The lesson is to stay in school and work a bit harder so you never have to stay somewhere like this!