As soon as we walked in to the apartment our hearts sank and we realised we had been conned. The representations in the advertisement are not truthful and the photos are not even close to accurate. Alas this is a good old fashioned 'bait and switch con'.
The apartment is disgusting and we left after a few hours and booked a hotel elsewhere. (At great expense) What a horrible thing to have to do on holiday. The owner, who is nearly impossible to reach, absolutely did not care and refuses to refund any of our money.
The first warning sign was when we met at the 'address'. We were walked two blocks to a different apartment and were told 'you need to stay somewhere else'. It was annoying to lug four suitcases, and two children, through long dark cobblestone lanes. The apartment is up three flights of stairs in the pitch dark (no lighting in the stairwell). We used our phones to see the way. The apartment is filthy and almost unliveable. There was leftover food in the kitchen from previous guests, the tiles are so cracked and dirty you have to wear shoes, the AC doesn't work properly, the beds are uncomfortable and the whole building and apartment are filthy. It feels horrible. We thought we would have a cup of tea while deciding what to do but there was no kettle. We then thought we'd have a shower but it was awful and mouldy we decided to skip that.
Rome is an amazing place with many amazing apartments. This is not one of them.
