Villa Monte Lentiscal

The house was completely uninhabitable for us. The smell of damp was unbearable, and the bedroom was worst, so we slept in the living room. My partner has respiratory problems and humidity and dust make her feel suffocated, so she needs an inhaler in those situations. We aired the house all day, but the smell stayed in our throats into the evening. We tried the air conditioning, as the owners suggested, but it didn't help. We bought a dehumidifier and incense to cover the smell, but it was too strong. I took photos because I know some people may not believe this, and we were not trying to get a free vacation. Another reviewer had complained of the same thing, and someone had replied accusing them of that. There was a moldy cushion in a closet, cobwebs on windows and doors, and behind the living room pictures, with bugs everywhere. Dead bugs were left stuck to the walls, and some switches had exposed wires. The house next door is covered in black mold, so I can imagine where the damp came from. The bathroom was stained when we arrived, and we cleaned it ourselves. The oven, kitchen, and dishes were dirty, and the counter had dirt and grains of salt or sugar. Water pressure at the kitchen tap was almost nonexistent, making it hard to wash dishes. The living room TV was old, and the bedroom TV had terrible picture quality. The awning worked, but it was covered in mold, cobwebs, and bugs. The mattress was very hard and stained, and the pillows were almost nonexistent, ultra-thin. All the furniture was old, worn, and dirty. We felt scammed and abandoned by Booking.com and the owners. The property is beside a busy road, right by the bedroom, and the entrance was hard to access, though we could park under cover. A woman named Jessica greeted us with a baby, which felt very unprofessional. The leather garden furniture was cracked from being left in the sun, and the garden, pool, and furniture were dirty with pine needles and dry leaves. She said the gardener would come Monday, but it was Saturday and we were leaving Tuesday, so they would start working on the garden while we were still there. The pool wasn't heated, was deteriorated and more like a pond, and needed maintenance. The tiles were so bad you could burn your hand by touching them, and the filters only worked at about 20% of what a normal pool filter should. The house didn't seem very clean when we arrived. At first, we thought the musty smell might be normal because it could have been closed for a long time due to the Covid-19 situation. We chose to pay at the property instead of through Booking.com, unaware that meant we couldn't make claims that way. We contacted Booking.com, who put us in touch with the owners. They said turning on the air conditioning would fix it, even though we'd already tried that. We asked for a refund or another solution. The next day, they denied it had ever happened and said no one had complained before, which made us feel crazy, even though there were three reviews saying the same thing. They refused a refund and offered no solution. We spent almost all of the next day out of the house, and all we got was this woman's denial and no concern at all. We called Booking.com again and explained everything, but apparently there was no solution because we had paid the owners directly.