Penny wise pound foolish stay. This place is a trap! Don’t stay here if you don’t want to be robbed. At first glance, the apartment looks secure. Decent neighbourhood and location, locked access to the block only by residents, and a double lock door gave us a false sense of security. While we were out, someone broke in and stole all our valuables. We had bought high value items amounting to 7000 euros. Despite locking the door and windows, the thief broke in with no sign of forced entry. He was a true professional, or it was an inside job. Besides stealing our stuff, we also found a knife in the bathroom, left by the thieves. Thank goodness we didn’t come back during the break in.
Throughout the stay, we didn’t meet the owner (Ben). Only his assistant, Gabi, who helped with check in, and his cleaner lady. Both have keys to access the apartment. After the incident, the owner did not bother to meet us, check his apartment, nor lodge a police report with us. Talk about being unhelpful. In my conversations and texts with Ben, all he could offer was an apology whilst constantly defending his Gabi and the cleaner as innocent. In conclusion, this seemingly safe looking apartment is a tourist trap where thieves can simply walk in and out with all our belongings without leaving a trace. The apartment looks nothing like the nice photos, and the owner, although quick to respond with smooth words in good times, offers no help nor takes any responsibility when a crime takes place in his apartment. I hope no one has to go through the ordeal we had to endure. We left a thorough review of the host. It was up on his Airbnb page for a week and unfortunately I received an email from Airbnb today saying it “includes sensitive, personally identifiable information” and has been removed. Airbnb didn’t even enquire about the knife in the bathroom!
I’m so sorry to hear this..the EXACT same thing happened to us in Pasadena, California around the same time in July 2016. My employer was shipping everything except the valuable things that we had brought with us worth more than 20,000 USD. We go out for 45 min, come back, door in open and everything is stolen. Nothing is touched from Airbnb furnishings. Funny thing is the camera system was BEING serviced during the exact same 45 min! turns out previous tenant never returned the key and the airbnb host failed to have the lock changed. However, no one is taking responsibility. We are going to sue the people whose negligence caused this. Do you happen to know others who fell for this like that and would be willing to share their story with the media? someone has to take action.
That sounds like a pretty shitty response (^)
No matter where you travel and what you buy, your place of stay should always be secure.
I’ve read about a case where someone broke into a hotel room because the windows weren’t secure, and if I’m not mistaken the travel agency had to be responsible for it in the end.
I would definitely try consulting legal advice on this case.
I am sorry that I don’t feel sorry for you. Leaving valuables amounting to €7000 in any property is plain stupid – probably so stupid a thing to do that your travel insurance won’t cover it.
Actually, if you were staying in a hotel and this happened it would be a serious problem and the hotel would probably help you contact a police report. I’m not sure what you expect people to do. Carry all their stuff around? Ship it as soon as they buy it so it can sit outside their empty house? Get a safe deposit box for a week, which you probably can’t do anyway? What’s your solution here? People often travel with valuable electronics. If there were a couple of laptops in the apartment, they could be worth about a grand each. A lot of people travel with laptops and leave them in their hotel rooms or rented apartments.
You should include the link to the profile so that others can avoid it!