sara d.

Without prejudice and written entirely from my perspective and all opinions being my own.

2 females (wise individuals) book a Villa in Marseille. Looks amazing online. In reality not so. We arrive exactly on time. All doors are open so we enter, a man is standing in the Kitchen with his back to us we say hello, he does not turn around and simply grunts. We are left to presume he is a guest. We wondered about on the ground floor. The first thing I see is the laundry strewn over the balcony with stones on top. Enter the living room a huge pile of sheets on the sofa. The dining room - once inside you are greeted by several huge paint splattered speakers of course not on the photos. Back towards the kitchen the man scuttles hurriedly upstairs. We step in the quite cluttered kitchen where said man has left the remnants of his bread and humus. A somewhat messy smaller room to the side housing the floor to ceiling booze some of which was leaking onto the floor and washing machine with odd pieces of laundry dotting the floor. Not a great reception at all. What to do? I suggest we venture upstairs to find our room and or the man we just saw. We are one flight up when the man reappears and blocks our path. He says nothing... I ask are you the host to which he replies are you so and so. Yes I say, he states, 'and you just come upstairs by yourself?' very aggressively. You just walked right passed us I state. 'I thought you were friends of my other guests who are english, why didn t you call me I gave you my number.' He never gave us his number (and why would we call him he was right there?) he was not forthcoming with any information prior to our arrival. I had asked how we would enter the villa and who would be there at what times, his reply don t worry all the taxi s know it.? I put that down to language barrier? We did not know till we got there at 6pm how to get in. I should explain that this is a villa quite high up not at ground level not so obvious. We found the gate and his name pressed the buzzer twice so i really don t understand how he did not know who we were? We presumed he had buzzed us in but we learnt later the gate was always open. He showed us to our room, presentable enough at first glance. He left to fetch towels and keys. He offered to show us the kitchen I replied I had already seen it. The atmosphere inside the villa was eerie and there was no sign of any other guests despite his earlier excuse for ignoring us. My friend went downstairs with him to be shown the washing machine I checked out the bathroom. The closet/wardrobe had been freshly painted so that couldn t be used due to smell. Behind the toilet were exposed wires where someone had done a very poor DIY light above the bathroom mirror job. The taps on the sink and in the shower were not clean the shower had a pebble bottom and several of these were missing showing age and wear. This led me to look under the bed and sure enough full of dust and a tissue? The bed seemed ok I pulled back the duvet to reveal a crumpled bottom sheet, I did the smell test they smelt neither clean nor dirty. My friend returned and informed me the host had left leaving the glass of wine he was drinking balancing on the garden wall. On further inspection of the towels he had handed us we realized they were in fact wet. We now also noticed the painting above the bed (not shown in the photos) of a female wearing a white basque which was revealing her pubic hair? Also above the bed at head level was a metal lever sticking out of the wall, for gas, water god knows? Definetely a hazard. We hadn t eaten all day so left to get a pizza nearby unsure of what we were going to do. This is when we noticed the opaque glass panel in the bedroom door which had 2 more see through circle sections and a further 2 scratched out spots which viewed the bed - our bed. Immediately to our left we saw a cupboard with a pair of scissors for a handle. As if all that wasn t enough there was no lock on the inside of the room. My friend told me that on her previous visit downstairs she had noticed a room with an open door which couldn t be a guest room she described an absolute tip with clothes and objects shin deep all over the floor. This door was closed now. In the entrance way we noticed a vase which had been smashed to bits and glued back together. All the plants from the photos were now covering the kitchen table dead. The host had left a cupboard open and plates balancing on the sink side. The fridge was completely full no room for us. On arrival we had noticed an animal hutch in front of the main door again not photographed not mentioned. So on our way out we noticed the 2 fluffy baby bunny rabbits? It did not reassure us. Also saw a plastic container containing dirty drinking glasses, many glasses just a step up from the front door so the entrance area, it had been there a while by the looks of it. We got our pizza and returned we ate outside as we did not feel comfortable inside. Turned out we were not comfortable outside either, we were completely on edge. We went to put the unfinished pizza in the bin which is when we saw the man s jumper and empty cleaning fluid bottle in the bin and I mean that was all that was in the bin. We immediately entered what is known as fight or flight mode, we didn t know where he was, he could have returned when were at the pizza place. I volunteered to go back upstairs and gather our belongings my friend stood guard at the front door. We locked the kitchen door he had left open returned the keys to the room and shut the self locking front door behind us and made our way down the creepy stone steps to our escape. With no phone ( my friend had issues with provider abroad) no access to internet we were forced to return to the city (30 min bus ride) and find a hotel. Luckily my friend had funds on her card to do this. With help from several members of the public and their phones we finally found our way to an Ibis to salvation. We were quite shaken up by the time we got to the hotel after 9pm. The staff were amazing they gave us discount because of our ordeal talked to us listened to us and the restaurant served us apple pie with cream and ice cream just what we needed after our ordeal. We contacted Airbnb as soon as was possible and for me that was before I had even returned home. We actually wrote a 4 page report sent photos that I even in my nervous state and had the foresight to take. We sent the hotel receipt. 2 weeks of the email game reliving that night over and over again to be told NO. The host won t refund and you didn t follow procedure. I mean its not real, right? Your emailing some minimum wage person who s first language is not english who are trained to say No. There are no supervisors or managers, my friend emailed the ceo s top dogs, nothing I don t believe they exist. For all we know it could literally be a 15 year old in their bedroom. This is not a real company at all. Its a sham. Appalling not just for us but this guy so called host is allowed to carry on, what about when 2 females not of our age and maturity book in there? It is not safe. You can t get anywhere with Airbnb directly its just not designed that way they have to be publicly outed and shamed and I would call for them to be shut down or boycotted so they just dissolve. This was my first and only experience with this cowboy outfit, thank goodness we had only used it for 2 nights of our 6 night break. We stayed with Ibis Hotels for the other nights and they were fantastic in every way. My friend has already contacted TV in the UK. They have to be brought to justice.

https://www.airbnb.com/rooms/*******

Tried 2 times to add photos here, page locks and I have to start again. Also had problems on Airbnbhell.com just didn t work.
When emailing Airbnb I lost my account for 2 days after trying to open a mail from them. It said it couldn t connect to google yet my other google accounts were fine?