Artist Residence Hostel

Dangerous, avoid this place. We were ten people in two family apartments at the budapest city residence for three days. The first day seemed fine, though the apartments weren't as nice as the photos suggested, and the bathroom was on a different level from the toilet. The next day we spent most of our time sightseeing, then came back around 4 p.m. for a break and to change. We were sitting and chatting, laughing, just doing normal holiday stuff. We weren't loud, but the manager came over twice to tell us to be quiet, even though a sign said nighttime quiet began at 8 p.m. Forget having coffee on the terrace either, we were threatened with a fine. Then a neighbor downstairs filmed us as we left, shouted at us in Hungarian and showed us the middle finger. On the stairs he opened his door and pointed a gun at us. When I called the manager to say we were contacting the police, he said they'd check the cameras, but told us there'd be no problem if we stayed quiet. The following day, the manager asked us to come to reception about our booking. We thought he wanted to sort out the previous night's situation, but instead he asked for a 100-euro deposit that hadn't been requested at check-in. The email before booking had only said it might be required. Rather than call police or deal with the neighbor, he tried to charge us and said he'd return it if everything was okay. We asked about the camera review he'd said he'd done. It turned out he was lying, since there was no camera at the place he said they'd check. I've never had a more ridiculous situation on a trip. We heard the unstable neighbor had terrorized other guests too. If you're with friends and want to avoid threats and having your trip spoiled by gang-like looking people and a guy pretending to be a manager, stay away. We originally booked through Booking, but they contacted us on WhatsApp to turn it into a “private” reservation, offering one-way airport transport and a two-hour later checkout. They told us not to pay through Booking so the booking would auto-cancel. We now think they didn't want Booking involved in a conflict like this, and we reported it to Booking too.