Hi there,
The image of the apartment is nice, isn’t it?
We also thought so. The property is called THE STAR CLOSE TO BIENNALE & ARSENALE so you will never make the mistake of going to this place.
Initially we were going to Budapest, and we had rented an apartment that surely would have been wonderful. Then they changed the covid restrictions and it was no longer possible to go to Budapest, so we had to change the flight.
Italy was the only place you could go without having to quarantine or take the PCR tests that cost 150 euros each. We were between Bari and Venezia; in the end we chose the second one. Terrible mistake.
We decided to rent an apartment inside Venezia since we mistakenly thought that each way to enter or leave the island would cost us 8 euros; then we realized that this was not the case. Everything we saw was very expensive and of terrible quality. In the end we opted for this property that you see in the photo because it seemed to be the most decent.
At the beginning Luca, the host, was very nice and the day after the reservation Alessandro wrote me to explain which vaporetto I had to take to go to the property. The guy told me that Wi-Fi didn’t work on the island so we had to take the vaporetto.
As we are used to walking and Diego knows how to use the map well, even though there is no Wi-Fi, we decided to walk from Piazzale Roma (where the bus from the airport leaves you) to the property. It was 56 minutes walking.
One important thing is that if you arrive after 8pm you must pay 20 euros more, if you arrive after 10pm it is 30 euros more and if you arrive after midnight, it is 50 euros more.
We arrived at 7:53 p.m. and the guy was 50 minutes late and without apologizing. His excuse was that some stupid tourists got lost even taking the vaporetto. It is obvious that a tourist can get lost, especially in Venice, which is like a maze. What little empathy and what lack of respect!
This man arrived all sweaty and without a mask. When we entered, he didn’t explain anything and started trying to turn on the air conditioners. At first, they did not turn on and then they stayed on fan. The guy gave me the controls, said new batteries needed to be bought, and left.
I sent another WhatsApp to this Alessandro, and I wrote to the host on Airbnb.
I told them that the next day at 12 noon the technician must be there to fix it. Also, I told the host that the apartment was disgusting and sent him 20 or 30 photos through the same Airbnb chat. There were fluff balls in the corners, cobwebs, hair in the bathroom, leftover sauce on the table, etc.
Think that after the covid, for tourist accommodation you must comply with a special cleaning that is not only cleaning but also “sanitizing” the place. It was evident that this apartment had not even been seen before our arrival.
That afternoon the host sent two women to clean, and Alessandro came again and spent an hour playing with the air conditioning to avoid solving anything. The two women passed a dirty mop. They left again and the same problems remained unresolved.
I wrote to the host again to tell him that the AC problem was still not resolved and that the cleaning ladies had left the same dirt as before. The response was, “Why didn’t you tell them where to clean?” Well, I am not their boss.
Also, I told him that the cleaning women had told me that the apartment had been closed since covid and had not been cleaned before our arrival.
Luca denied all this saying that perhaps the women had not been able to express themselves (they were foreigners). Also, here the guy started calling me arrogant and hostile because “they were helping me, and I was too demanding.” I told him that they did not have to help me, but that they had to solve a problem that they themselves had created for me since I had paid for a service that I was not receiving.
After this, the man became hysterical and told me that “since I had paid a very cheap price for Venezia, it was understood that all these problems were going to be covered”.
As it was going to be the second night without air conditioning and seeing that they wanted to fool me, I wrote directly to Airbnb by all possible means. Also, I asked a friend who lives in Italy to call customer support, but with the covid issue they didn’t even have a telephone service.
That afternoon I cried from the rage and impotence that I had. All I wanted was to set the apartment on fire and get out.
The next day a “technician” appeared who did not even know where the external air conditioning unit was. Then Luca’s father came, a man who looked like he had a stroke or something of the sort because he couldn’t even articulate words. It turned out that the air conditioner was on top of another building, so they needed permission and a ladder to go up. Yet another excuse. They left again without solving anything. It was going to be the third night.
Fortunately, an Airbnb manager showed up and I told him that we were still without AC.
Right after Luca wrote me to admit that they were not going to fix the air conditioning and that he would reimburse us 100% of the rest of the nights less the 70 euros of cleaning costs. It’s even funny that he still wanted to keep the money from the cleaning that was never done. Amazing.
I spoke to the Airbnb manager and told him that I wanted all my money, including the two nights we stayed there because there was no air conditioning. Also, I wasn’t going to pay for a cleaning that was never done.
I was confident that I was going to win. First of all, because I was right, the apartment was dirty and we had been without air conditioning for three days. In addition to that, I never used a bad word and the guy had already called me arrogant and hostile for the simple fact of demanding my rights. In other words, it was enough to read the chat to see who had done wrong.
After a while the manager wrote me again and told me that they would refund all the money and we booked at the StayCity in Venezia Mestre and the experience was wonderful, in the next post I will tell you about it.
Another important thing is that the same I-Home agency is the one that rents all the apartments in Venezia. It’s a mob. So, it is better to go to a hotel since all the apartments will be just as dirty and neglected.
In addition to the money for the reservation, in Italy you must pay a “tassa di soggiorno” which is an amount for each night you stay up to a maximum of 5 days. Within Venezia it is 4 euros, so we had to pay 40 euros through a link that Luca sent me.
Since we only stayed two nights, he would have to refund me 24 euros. At the time the reservation was cancelled, he told me that this money was automatically refunded to the same credit card, something that had not happened two weeks later. So, I proceeded to report him for fraud with Airbnb and before all the organizations I found in Italy.
After an Airbnb agent was after him for a week to return the money, the guy said that he had decided to keep that money to cover the expenses he had with the cancellation of my reservation.
Obviously, the guy gave me a super long review calling me names, that I was excessively pretentious and that I must have many problems in my life. Such a long review to wait for me to read it. But in general, I was very demanding for expecting a clean apartment with working air conditioning as it was placed in the description of the ad.
In the end, it was better that this happened because then we stayed in two excellent places in Venezia Mestre and in Verona, with wonderful hospitality.
Once again, one bad review should be paid more attention than 20 good ones. This accommodation has a bad review on booking.com and another on Airbnb. These reviews are the ones that tell how the accommodation, and the host really are. Here I leave them along with my review.
Learning from this horrible experience
- If you go to Venice for nothing in the world, stay on the island. A metro station away (10min) there are a lot of super new hotels and tourist apartment complexes with all the comforts.
- Besides, inside Venice everything is absurdly expensive. The tourist tax costs 4 euros when in the rest of Italy, it costs 1.50. In the supermarket a kilo of pasta costs about 4 euros. The accommodations are excessively expensive and to have something half decent you must go to a 4-star hotel and up. We had paid 910 euros for 2 weeks and the apartment was disgusting.
- Venice is smelly and dirty, so living and staying there is not nice and pleasant like you see in the movies.
- Always look out for negative reviews. I have realized that many times a hotel is better than an apartment, especially because you always have someone to solve the problems.
- Regarding accommodation, it is better to be near a bus or metro station than in the center.
Here is the video from my YouTube channel:
Here is the link of the property on Airbnb: