Atlantic Do Archi

I really like the apartment’s cute, cozy layout and how clean it is. It’s small, but has a little kitchen and a washer, and the location is good. The big problem was the shower: there was no hot water, just freezing water and about five seconds of scalding hot water when the toilet was flushed. That was awful with the cold weather outside. We also had to pay a $50 cleaning fee we hadn’t known about, and I regret spending that money when I could have stayed somewhere with hot water. Otherwise, the apartment would have been perfect.

We were charged 30 Euros for damage to a bed, even though it was clearly broken before we arrived. A slat fell out when I sat down, leaving us with a mattress on the floor, and the foot of the bed was hanging loose. The two bedside lamps in one room weren’t secured together either. A small knock made the whole stack fall over. It left me wondering whether they’d been put together carelessly or whether someone was trying to collect more damage fees. The apartment was listed for 11 people but had only seven chairs, and one of those was falling apart badly enough to seem dangerous. The soap dispensers gave out water instead of soap. Doors and much of the apartment were badly installed or broken. The kitchen lacked basics such as salt, oil, tea towels, and an oven glove. They charged our credit card before telling us. We could only reach the woman with the keys, who passed all responsibility to her boss, whom we couldn’t contact. For extra frustration, it turns out the company is based in a tax haven.

We felt so uncomfortable that we left early. The host then said we had to go because of an early flight, but there was a global outage and no flights. Why should we have left? Don’t stay here, even if it’s free. We were asked to pay about 50 euros for cleaning again, despite already paying cleaning fees through Airbnb. The bed was flatly arranged, though we hadn’t washed the sheets before leaving. We left two bowls of watermelon in the fridge rather than binning the food; the host threw it away but left the bowls in the sink, then claimed we hadn’t cleaned. The host also sent an old photo showing the fridge untidy, even though we’d pushed it in before leaving. We couldn’t unlock the front door, so my partner had to climb several metres up to a bathroom window and get inside to open it from within. That was unsafe and unprofessional, and only possible because my partner is small. The airport didn’t work properly, so I opened the filter and showed the host, who accused us of damaging the property. We didn’t know where to take the rubbish because of unclear instructions. Bridgette told us to leave it at the supermarket, but that would have been littering, so we left it bagged instead. The host said we should have asked, but shouldn’t the host tell guests where the rubbish goes?

A good apartment in Venice.