Halit Vargün Apart

A NIGHTMARE. We left the Halit Vargun Apart after three nights, and I wouldn't consider this place safe. The owner seemed to be several people all called Mehmet. He appeared to take the money, then disappeared, and we couldn't reach him by phone. Before arriving, I arranged a transfer from Sabiha Airport through a message on Booking. The owner offered the service, but nobody came to pick us up. We waited an hour for "Mehmet" and then took a taxi. The driver had trouble finding the hotel, which is at the end of a street. After we checked in, Mehmet didn't give me a receipt for the payment. He said he'd come back the next day with proof of payment for our seven nights, but never did. There was no reception, just an owner who showed up when it suited him. The TV remote was missing. On the second morning, a woman opened our bedroom door without permission. When she saw someone was inside, she said something in Turkish and shut it. The building had cameras, but the door didn't lock from inside. It opened from outside with a simple numeric password, so we felt someone could enter at any time. When we came back from sightseeing, someone had been in our room and moved our belongings around. They took things off the table, moved our toothbrushes, soaps, and bathroom shampoos, opened our bags and put the items inside them. Even an apple from the fridge was placed in my backpack. It felt like cleaning meant moving our things around, opening backpacks, and disregarding our privacy and well-being. The worst happened on our third night, around 01:30 am. My family and I woke in a panic to a furious woman in a burqa and two children pounding and screaming at the apartment door. It was a frightening scene. A video phone in the bedroom sounded loudly and showed people downstairs trying to break the door, which made it even more tense. They yelled and kicked the door for over an hour, and the noise carried through the hotel. We were trapped in the room, unsure what to do and afraid of what might happen. The owner had repeatedly said the property was next to a police station, but no police arrived, even with all the noise. Around 02:00 am, another man, not the one who had checked us in, appeared and also called himself Mehmet. He opened the entrance and knocked on room doors, asking who had locked the hotel door from the inside. I didn't get the impression he was concerned about the guests' safety or well-being. This frightening commotion happened at dawn, and with no reception, other guests couldn't sleep either. We spent the night awake and decided to leave Halit Vargun Apart the next day. Stay away from this place. The owner only seemed to turn up for payment, then vanished and couldn't be contacted by phone.