Solid Residence

A lovely location.

The place was so dirty and full of insects, and the bed was broken and impossible to sleep on. I paid for two nights but left after one, and they didn't seem to care or want to refund the second night, even though I was very unhappy. They also take your phone and cancel the reservation on Booking, somehow getting around the law. I wouldn't recommend it at all. If you want to spend the night awake and not enjoy your trip, come here.

The main reason I'm writing is how the agent or owner spoke to us. My wife and I were insulted and ridiculed, and I won't name the people we had to deal with. When we paid the deposit, my wife had explained that we had a two-year-old and needed a fully equipped apartment to make food for ourselves and the child. We usually rent a three-room place with her parents each year. The building itself looked good from outside. It's on the boulevard and easy to find with Waze, with tasteful, expensive materials, a large parking lot, a guard at the gate, and card access to both the yard and building. The stairwell was clean and had no visible pipes or meters. We stayed six days, despite wind and rain outside, in a place I can barely call an apartment. The listing photos showed a completely different, nicer apartment with a view of Siutghiol. We got the one shown in the photo on the third floor with the phone number displayed. I attached photos of the defects. The damp smell was everywhere. There was limescale and rust on most metal bathroom fixtures, brown residue in the toilets from poor cleaning, and one of the two toilet lids was broken and needed careful handling. I'd say about 70% of the furniture and electronics didn't work properly, or at all. A bedroom wardrobe wouldn't open fully, so my in-laws kept clothes in their luggage or wherever they could. Sockets were coming out of the walls, with exposed electrical wires taped at the ends. In the living room, a wardrobe door under the TV nearly caught my fingers when I opened it; it seemed to be there just for show. The sofa back was broken in one place and smelled like someone had used it without pants, and the table next to it was old and broken. After five minutes walking around, my socks looked so bad I wish I'd taken a photo. I bought a mop and cleaning solution so I could wash the floor and be barefoot instead of wearing shoes. The kitchen was another mess. Someone had quickly wiped it with a rag before we arrived, and that was about it. The cabinets were fine, but the induction hob kept showing an error and needed resetting each time. The “buyer” did the same, showing an error, and we had to leave the window wide open to dry the kitchen air because the oven wouldn't work in the humidity. The dishes and cutlery looked like the picture, and we didn't even have a bottle opener. The dishwasher tried to start, but we gave up. I wasn't going to spend the vacation reading manuals to reset appliances, and there wasn't much to wash anyway. I didn't try the washing machine. The TVs worked only on analog, and the picture looked bad on digital. The apartment had been tastefully furnished, but nobody had looked after it. We told them about the furniture problems when we arrived so the owner wouldn't think we'd broken anything. We were told it couldn't be fixed because the furniture company worked by appointment and it would take time. That evening I found the hob wasn't working and called the lady to ask how to get it running. I told her I'd tried the advice online and wiped it with a solution because it was dirty and infected, and I think she took that as an insult. She concluded it was possible the apartment belonged to the gentlemen and to her too, and that it should be cleaned. She came over and got the hob working after all. I'd asked her to just tell us over the phone if she knew which buttons to press.

The yard is well organized, with parking spaces.