Brusisch 1638

We were only looking for a one-night stop on the way home, but left after about 15 minutes and got no refund. The place looked stately at first, then felt eerie, and the accommodation was dark, damp, dusty and unsettling. The owners seemed to be home, with their car in the driveway, but nobody came to greet us. We were two women traveling together, and neither of us would have stayed even if a man had been with us. We booked through Air BnB because the house looked nice and the lake seemed inviting. Honestly, don’t stay here.

A lovely, peaceful short stay in lakeside villas, with very kind and helpful hosts. They even arranged a tasty platter of meat, cheese, fruit and wine. The only downside was that the electricity was off overnight. I couldn’t tell whether that was deliberate, a mistake, or a technical problem. The place is quaint and quiet, around 25 minutes from Malpensa airport, and felt like a home away from home.

We left about ten minutes after arriving because the damp, creepy atmosphere gave us a bad feeling. The odd parrot didn’t help. We’d booked through Airbnb for just one night because the place looked nice. Then I noticed the Wi-Fi password was 6monate6. Monate has six letters, so it looked like 666 to me. Maybe that seems like a sign, especially in a very Catholic country like Italy. Who chooses that? Thank God we left. Avoid this hell hole!

The way we were treated at checkout was completely unacceptable. At 10:50 am, the owner came in clapping, told us to leave immediately, and said he would wait until 11. He sat by the door, counting down our remaining minutes, then at 10:55 stood up and ordered us out, trying to throw our luggage outside. My mother was in the bathroom, so I grabbed our backpacks quickly. I was scared he would toss them into the garden, where my photography gear worth 6000 EUR and our expensive laptops could have been damaged. He kept verbally abusing us until 11 and said that because the house was his, he could enter the apartment whenever he wanted. I managed to record the incident on my phone, and my lawyer is taking it further. That followed a miserable night in a dark, run-down apartment with dirty, stained sheets that smelled awful. When we asked for linen for the sofa bed, the owner’s wife brought it over without speaking and seemed annoyed. We discovered at about midnight that the bedding had already been used, so we fetched our own blankets from the car. In the morning, someone from upstairs poured soapy water onto the blankets while they were on a bench outside, and we had to dry them on chairs in the garden. At 10:35 am, the owner’s wife came into our apartment without knocking, demanded we move the blankets, and shouted that we had dirtied the sheets when we showed her the stains. She took the bedding and left. She hadn’t said a word to us the day before, so it was surprising to hear her speak English. We were shocked by her coming in and by the way she spoke to us. The owner also seemed very strange when we arrived. He spoke English, though we found him difficult to understand. His wife and he both appeared to be drug addicts to us, based on their behavior and appearance. The apartment itself was cave-like, with wires hanging from the ceiling, a broken toilet seat and broken sockets. There were spotlights instead of chandeliers in the living room. The kitchen bins had rubbish in them, including one full of marijuana stubs. The patio couch was very old and dirty, and loud music from the property’s lakeside cottage went on late into the night. The atmosphere was stiff, and the place was badly run down. This accommodation shouldn’t be allowed to host guests and doesn’t deserve a single star. Please avoid it at all costs.