Reserve un piso en cualquier parte del mundo y la próxima crítica de 5 estrellas podría ser la suya.
My honest thought is that the owner is only making money from this old looking flat and not paying attention to detail or asking tenants keep facilities in good condition. It is true that I was contacted to take pictures of the broken part near the boiler in the bathroom, so they are supposedly trying to do some maintenance with the paint and humidity stains.
This thought is fueled by the fact that when I was making the reservation my price went higher from the one sponsored on the web (637€/30 days), the owner said that ''the calendar was open automatically'' which at first shows how careless for our experience the owner is and also it was an opportunistic move from the owner to get more money from me as an overseas student pulling the price to 16500 czk (678€/30 days) + Flatio's fees.
Every local in Prague I spoke about the price of my room told me this price is too expensive and that I had gotten scammed for being a 'tourist', etc, specially when the owner doesn't even provide toilet paper, hand soap, washing machine detergent...
The day of the handover I didn't meet up with Blažena, I was told to start contacting 'Martina' in WhatsApp which is not following Flatio's rules, etc.
The flat is located near Atrium Flora's department store, Flora's metro and Radhotska tram line. The appartment is below floor and the building has a room with trash cans with wheels to make it easier to take out the trash. There's recycling 2 minutes walking from the house.
First thing I noticed in the flat was that the doors were extremely difficult to close: Everytime you wanted to close any door in the house you would need to smash them with a lot of strength and making noise for everyone in the flat. This room is private and has a key to lock it.
The building's entrance door and flat's principal door are working properly and not so noisy in comparison.
The room is big and spacious. Sadly the chair in the room is old and uncomfortable to sit on while using the table, so you might consider finding a pillow. The power supply nearest to the bed is loose, the beige cover's of the sofa pillows are covered in old stains. Good thing is that the owner provides you a towel and a duvet. The table is suspiciously placed over a humidity stain on the corner of the room, as if they were trying to hide it. The Wi-Fi works well.
The common areas are divided in entrance, kitchen, small room with just the toilet, I think that was very useful giving the condition that you will share the flat with more people, and a corridor to the bathroom/washing machine room.
The oven works well, but the default baking tray and other oven accesories are old, stained, oily, looking disgusting, so this aspect comes back to the first thought of the tenants not taking care of anything in this appartment because the tenant is as well being careless about the conditions. Both the bathroom and toilet room when you turn on the light a humidity device starts making a demonic noise that will be playing for long.
There's a thermostat located next to the door of the bathroom and in front of another flatmate's room, this device controls the radiators for every room which is gonna be problematic in winter because in my case someone kept turning it off even thought the streets were snowed.
I think the owner should lower the price of the accomodation if this strategy goes on, because the facilities, kitchen's utensils, etc are gonna be more worn out if tenants stay being as careless, dirty as the ones I had the honor to share the flat with, to give context, they cut vegetables over the crystal table, leave vegetables peels all over the kitchen's floor, half-cut onions on the fridge making it impossible to have a brick of milk inside without it absorbing the smell of it, and making piles of trash over already full trash can, and not recycling.
I wouldn't return to this accomodation for the price I paid and the bad experience specially with the dirty flatmates I had to survive with for 2 months which made me use my own trash bags inside my room so I wouldn't have to be taking the trash of everyone out.
Funny story and to wrap it all, on the website for the room it says there's a hairdryer avaiable, when there's not a hairdryer in the flat. I asked Miss Martina for it on WhatsApp, and she promised to get it to me 'next week'. I'm still waiting for it, so, how could I ask them for help with the other issues when they couldn't fix that small issue? It was much easier to survive these 2 months and forget about my 3 nasty flatmates which as I recalled they were gonna be staying longer than me there.
After approx. two weeks, the toilet started to leak the water. When we announce this to the apartment owner, she at first said she will call someone to fix it, but nobody came for the first scheduled time. After trying to contact the owner again, she threaten me that if some water leaks to the neighbours flat I will be responsible for it and she blocked me on the phone. In very urgent situation, she was responding only via Flatio platform and with with absolutely inadequate frequency and communication style.
The second agreed time, the plumber came, but he fixed nothing, the problem only gets worse (he had no spare parts and after dismantling the toilet the flushing button was broken and to toiled was completely unusable). I tried to contact the owner, but with no response, even on Flatio. On fourth day without usable toilet, we decided to leave the apartment, because it the situation was unbearable.
This flat owner only cares about her profit. She is a shame of the Czech Republic flat renters. Stay away from this renter and apartment.
HOST'S REPLY:
Due to completely false information, Flatio does not include this rating in the owner’s overall rating.
1. Заселение/время чек-ин-чек-аут
Во-первых, арендодатель настаивает на позднем заселении в 16:00, что в принципе неудобно. Но когда мы заселялись, даже в это время нас не смогли заселить и мы были вынуждены ждать еще час, так как квартира не была готова. Я считаю это категорически неприемлемым, так как время заселение итак невероятно позднее, а нас заставили еще час сидеть с чемоданами и просто ждать, хотя номер был полностью оплачен. Время выселения 10:00 утра, что опять же, неудобно.
2. Не заселили в забронированное здание.
Мы выбрали конкретную квартиру в конкретном здании, проверили что нас устраивает вид из окна и только потом оплатили. Но во время заселения нас поселили в другое здание, с гораздо худшими условиями и очень плохим ремонтов (вздутые и обшарпанные полы, из которых торчали щепки, так как это был битый ламинат).
Мы сразу же обратились в арендодателю, но он тянул несколько дней и не переселял нас в забронированную и оплаченную квартиру, пришлось связывать с поддержкой flatio. Только после того как они (flatio) объяснили нам, что мы можем съехать и потребовать компенсацию за неделю-нам переселили в нужное здание, на это ушло несколько дней. И да, нас заселили не в номер с тем видом, который мы выбрали на flatio, а опять не в тот. В третий раз мотать себе нервы и ругаться мы уже просто не стали.
3. Чистота.
Квартира грязная: грязные пятная на занавесках, сколы и пятна на поверхностях. Не считая занавесок, это было не ужасно, а просто обшарпано, но так как мы платили большой залог: пришлось очень долго это все фотографировать/снимать/обсуждать/тратить свое время, чтобы в дальнейшем не было претензий.
4. Не работающий Wi-Fi
Он просто настолько медленный, что ни одной страницы вы не загрузите. Нам пришлось купить местные сим-карты с Интернетом, потому что он не работал вообще.
Помощь нам предложили за неделю для выезда, когда у нас уже был интернет, и нам было это не нужно.
5. Очень долгий возврат депозита.
Если вы думаете что вам вернут депозит в день выселения, просто проверив номер-вы ошибаетесь. Вам придется ждать минимум 3-5 дней ( и это если повезет), постоянно о себе напоминая, чтобы хоть как-то ускорить процесс возврата. Мы свой все еще не получили, но пока что еще надеемся что обойдемся без очередного скандала и привлечения поддержки flatio.
The alarm went off multiple times. The windows could't be closed, the bathroom door couldn't be closed. The kithcen lacks in many many things, it caused us a headache to borrow things from friends, eg. breadknife, spatula. The communication was not easy with the landlord or the co-host. After a while they did not respond to our messeges. The only good thing is the location, but need to know even though it is central it is not the safest part of the city, many homeless people hanging around as you enter the building.
2) The “climatisation” system was insufficient and consisted of a defective air conditioner and a “mobile air cooler” (also known as a fan). The flat was uninhabitable when the outdoor temperature reached 35C.
3) A third of the mostly LED light bulbs in the flat were burnt out. The bulbs were not available in local stores and most would have required the use of ladder to replace (because of the 4-meter-high ceilings).
Our contract listed Orsolya as the “Landlord” yet when we contacted her about these deficiencies, she claimed that she was only a rental agent and could not do anything directly. She claimed to have notified the “owner” about the problems but there was never any follow up.
To summarize, we paid higher than average rent for a leaky, sweltering, dark apartment (based on deceptive website photos and descriptions) to a mysterious “owner” who had no intention of rectifying any issues.
WE DO NOT RECOMMEND RENTING THIS FLAT.
Be ready to live on the loudest street in budapest, with ambulances and police sirens every 10 min.
All of that with a host that lies to you (the 'smart ac' is just a way to make sure you are not enjoying it too much), and also treats you like a child (frequent house inspections).
Be ready for lack of privacy with an unmentioned common area (there is a picture, yes, but very ambiguous and without a word of description).
Bei Ausstattung und Sauberkeit ist ordentlich Luft nach oben, besonders was die Küche betrifft.
Unangenehm auch, dass kein Fenster geöffnet werden darf, in der Küche auch gar nicht geöffnet werden kann.
Bad und Waschmaschine sind Ok.
Secondly, the natural light was such a big issue for me. I could never have one sleep where my body wouldn’t be disturbed by the natural light, so I never was able to have one night of continuous sleep here (+ the heat as explained above). As the landlord likely wanted to keep costs down for them, instead of thinking about the basic needs of their tenants, as well as no AC, there were no fitted blackout curtains. Just two blinds that were set so far from the window all the light managed to enter from the gapping sides, and a flimsy, sheer white curtain which was set in front of the large glass double door that led to the small terrace, so so much light just poured in as soon as the sun rose at 6am. Furthermore, the blind had been poorly fitted and if we went to just open the window to try lessen the boiling hot apartment, the blind would fall and every time we would have to fix it. It became a nuisance. We had to take matters into our hands again, by using a blind that they had hidden behind a cabinet and draping it over that curtain pole. It didn’t do much but we had to try something.
Thirdly, the hot water. When we went to have a shower, obviously one would want to take a lukewarm shower, not an ice cold one for 30 mins to wash their hair, or shave etc. The hot water just ran out after 30mins leaving me or my partner, to have to have a cold shower. So we had to start taking shorter showers, when we had been at the beach or out all day and just had wanted to come back to a relaxing shower. That was not an option at this shit show of an apartment!
Finally, the landlords attitude when faced with having to take care of their tenants. It was awful. On my last night, our keys had been left in the apartment and the door had been shut and locked itself (as it locks automatically) as we went for dinner with my partners parents at around 9pm-10pm. We realised as we left the apartment building neither of us had the key, and so we called Lucia the landlord. She was talking over me as I was trying to politely explain what happened, but I gave her the benefit of the doubt and blamed it on poor connection as she isn’t even in Madeira she is in South Africa, so no where near to properly assist to her tenants if need be. However when she did eventually listen to my problem, I was met with such a rude and, dare I say, bitchy tone, as she said she won’t do anything about it, regardless of the fact we had a flight the next morning at 7am, as the other woman who also assumed responsibility of the apartment and lives in Madeira, was asleep and she reused to wake her and said we’d just have to miss our flight as there is nothing she would do about it. After my polite plead for help, my partner had to use a more firm tone with her, in which she finally agreed to call the other woman to give us the spare set of keys she had. So we drove there, got them, and all was sorted- however, again lack of concern for tenants was apparent as they had not left any spare keys anywhere near the apartment.
So this whole stay was just not a peaceful experience, it was so problematic. From the hot temperature due to no AC, the flooding in of natural light at 6am due to poor efforts to install proper blackouts, to sleepless nights, and the rude/ unprofessional attitude of the main tenant Lucia…I would 100% never stay here again. I should note the apartment building itself had maggots just running around on the ground floor, and there was a crushed dead one on the elevator door- think it sums up the stay pretty well. Thanks.
HOST'S REPLY:
Thanks for your comments and feedback. A few things were out of my control eg the uncharacteristic heat wave in Madeira that broke new temperature records. An aircon has not been needed in the past due to the normally moderate climate, but we will look at investing in this in the future. The unusually high temperatures probably also contributed to the maggots you saw, as the block is always kept in a very clean state. I will bring this up with the body corporate though.
I apologize if I was abrupt in the middle of the night, but I was caught off gaurd. We now have procedures in place if this happens again in the future.
We booked the apartment for 6 months. After staying for there for 3ish months, we found our permanent apartment so gave 30 days notice (on 20th of the month) as per Flatio's guidance. When we gave notice, we had already paid the rent for the following month (up till 30th of the following month). This meant that the landlady was supposed to return the last 10 days rent to us given based on our 30 days we would check out 10 days early.
When I asked the landlady to return that money, initially she was like after you checkout I will return it. So I waited for that but once I checked out she stopped replying. I contacted Flatio to help with the issue but they mainly kept saying that she isn't replying either. I would think that given Flatio's service fee (I paid 841 euros), they will take care of this issue on their own and give me my money back. Additionally, seems like there were no consequences for the landlady given this listing is still active and she got other renters.
I would just like my money back.
I've never paid so much for a "furnished" flat and had so little.
the location is great and the unit itself is great and new and big but it was so frustrating to not have more furniture and basic items.
no TV, no microwave (although they brought one a few days later, which however was missing Rotating platter so it was useless) no drying rack for clothes, no drying rack for dishes, (dishwasher was broken) only a couch in the living room which would sit 3. Iron came a few days later however no Ironing board to be able to iron. No clothes hangars, not even a Broom or a Mop to clean the floors.
Bathtub on main floor did not hold water.
hope they spend some money and do some repairs because it is a potentially nice stay.
The staff and owner were great and the location is excellent. If we hadn't been spending 40 hours a week in the apartment trying to work, it would have been great.
If you run the stove and the washing machine at the same time, the main fuse pops.
No shower curtain, the joints between the tiles on the bathroom floor are missing and if you’ll be away for a few days, mushrooms grow out of it.
The entrance to the apartment looks like a dumpster, because of the construction at the front building.
This was the worst experience with temporarily renting a unit that I have ever had. When I arrived, almost none of the described equipment was in the apartment (no broom or dustpan, no mop, no extra sheets for the pullout sofa bed, no vacuum, no clothes drying rack, no ironing board, no clean sponge for dishes, no fruit/water or shower gel as advertised in the "welcome package"). PLUS, the upstairs A/C (in the bedroom) was not working. This A/C was inoperable for a week, so the first week of my stay I couldn't sleep in the only bed in the apartment AND couldn't sleep on the pullout sofa couch because no sheets were ever provided to make up the bed. Then there was an ant issue in the bathroom and kitchen when I moved in. I tried to give Maribel the benefit of the doubt in all of this and didn't report her to Flatio right away, but that was a mistake because things only got worse!!
The A/C worked without issues for about a week, then it stopped working in the middle of the night randomly. Maribel sent technicians to look at it who spied on me and reported back to her what I was wearing inside the apartment wherein she accused me of "overusing" the A/C and reported me to Flatio for something that was clearly an issue before I got there. At this point, I escalated all these issues to Flatio and Maribel told the Flatio worker that we could agree to an early contract termination by mutual agreement. I waited to see if I could change my flight home before I agreed, then once I could secure an earlier flight I agreed. I have (IN WRITING) that this landlord (Maribel) agreed to early contract termination on the specific date that I was going home and agreed to a partial refund PLUS she agreed to a Flatio worker on this arrangement--even suggesting it herself--but once I had a new flight she backed out and refused to refund me in part. Flatio did nothing to hold her accountable, although they did offer some compensation on their end to try to make up for it (which wasn't close to the amount Maribel had agreed to refund me).
In the end, the unit was unprepared to host guests--especially long-term guests. There were so many issues with the apartment I could barley leave to explore the city or enjoy the beach because I was stuck waiting for supplies to be dropped off, or technicians to come check on the A/C multiple times, or pest control. Then, when issues were persistent Maribel suggested we agree to early contract termination but once I actually changed my flight she backed out on her end of our agreement and scammed me out of ~$400 (~$50 per night x 8 nights that I left early). The one and only good thing was the proximity to the beach, BUT IT WASN'T WORTH IT. STAY SOMEWHERE ELSE!!!
It is way overpriced. If you plan to stay for more than 1 month, it's better to look for other options. 28 (34) thousand CZK for this apartment is excessive, considering it's on the first floor, the location, and other points. For this money, you can rent a much better place. In my opinion, the optimal price should not exceed 20k CZK per month.
The internet is quite slow (up to 50mb). Watching movies in 1080HD and performing regular work tasks, video calls are slow and of poor quality.
There are many insects (ants, etc.), especially noticeable in early spring, as they crawl in from the street because the apartment is on the first floor.
The bedroom window is right next to the entrance door to the building, so you can constantly hear it opening/closing, conversations, and noise.
The bedroom is small, but this can be seen in the photos.
Overall, the living experience is not bad, the hosts are nice and live in the apartment across the hall, but the pricing issue is quite unpleasant. Moreover, read the contract carefully - if you cancel the apartment for any reason earlier, you will be obliged to return the difference, proportionate to the discount you received when booking. We booked for half a year since we planned to live that long or even longer. But due to certain circumstances, we had to move out earlier, on the 3rd month, and return an additional 18k CZK to the owner. It was quite an unpleasant experience, as the apartment ended up costing about 34 thousand CZK per month or 102,000 CZK for 3 months. Is it worth it? Absolutely not.
Be cautious and learn from others' mistakes :)
- location
- spacious
- big bed
- the neighbors did not make any noise
- all issues due to flatio have been resolved
- very fast internet
Of the cons:
- it was dirty and cold when we arived (this was compensated by an additional day of stay)
- washing machine on the first floor
- there is a gas cylinder (but I think it is dangerous in the apartment)
- unreliable lock in the entrance door
- in the winter, if you rent and it would be warm, then investing in 25% is unrealistic. Because the heating is electric.
- the owner demanded daily electricity reports for the first months.
- the kettle is old (needs to be replaced)
- the refrigerator makes noise
In general, I recommend renting the apartment in the warm season.