In 10+ years renting via VRBO we’ve never written (or needed to write) a negative review.
We reserved the apartment for 3 nights but ended up leaving early in the morning after the 1st night. We couldn’t sleep due to the makeshift bed, the lack of heat and the overpowering smoky smell.
The main issue we had is that the property is completely misrepresented in the description on the website.
Here are the issues we had:
1) There is no central heating. There is a gas space heater in the dining room and a plug in, rolling type portable electric space heater in the room with the bathtub/bed which was useless.
2) There aren’t 2 bedrooms-there aren’t any bedrooms. The one bed is in the “bathroom” and is too small for two adults to sleep together. The other “bed” is actually a sofa in the living room that gets reconfigured into a very uncomfortable “bed”. We ended up sleeping on that sofa but couldn’t actually sleep. It was freezing cold and the apartment reeked of smoke.
3) There aren’t 2 bathrooms. There is one separate toilet in the hallway with no heat source, and the bathtub/shower is actually in a separate room with a small bed in it.
4) If you do stay with more than two people, you have to walk through the living room area of the sofa bed to get to the toilet.
5) We found the stench of the former smoke house unbearable. When I read the owners’ description, I imagined it was years ago and probably in a different part of the building than what we were renting. The smell is evident when you walk into the door on the ground floor and it gets stronger as you get to the 3rd floor apartment. The owner told me that the rental apartment was the drying room i.e hams were hanging from the ceiling in the apartment. The smell is completely imbedded in all of the furnishings and surfaces. The smoke smell made it impossible to sleep and seemed unhealthy. It got in our hair, our clothes, our wool coats. We had to clean everything after being there one night.
6) The summary should say that the apartment is on the 2nd European floor/US 3rd floor.
The owners were very welcoming when we checked in. We quickly left to go for dinner and returned late to realize the situation. Since it was late when we got back for the night, we decided to make the best of it but couldn’t sleep, got up early, booked a hotel room and rushed out. It was my husband’s birthday so we didn't want a confrontation with the owners to spoil our vacation further.