It's that time again.... Rant time! This time my rage is fully focused on our Rotterdam accommodation, so much so that poor Rotterdam doesn't get a post of its own, just the rant, and will forever be tainted in our minds.
So we had booked accommodation with airbnb (for those who don't know it's where you book a room or apartment directly with the owner for short stays) and had a nice apartment lined up for our first few nights in the Netherlands. Two nights before we arrived we got an email from the owner saying there had been emergency maintenance on the property and as such we could no longer stay, however he had arranged an alternative apartment for us which was actually more expensive and in a better location etc. Sweet we thought... Nice of him to do that for us and certainly happy with any kind of upgrade.
Oh dear.... We arrived and whilst in a brilliant location, about 5mins walk from the station, that is where the ticks ended. As soon as you entered the 'apartment', and I use this term extremely loosely, you were hit with an overwhelming smell of mould, old and damp. After dumping our bags in the bedroom, I noticed black hairs on the pillow and doona case, and dumbly I decided to check in the bed..... Novice move! Matt's bed was two blow up mattresses on top of each other making it so high up that he could hardly get on it (but at least his sheets were clean!)
Next fun discovery was the kitchen. The utensils consisted of cutlery, a broken wooden spoon and a pair of disposable chopsticks. Certainly not the "well equipped kitchen" as promised. The frying pan was still full of grease and one of the pots was so rusty that I wouldn't have dared eaten from it. The plates were covered in little specks of rust from the hinge on the cupboard door. The fridge was on such an angle that you couldn't open the door if there were beers in it. The power board that had the kettle, toaster and microwave plugged in didn't actually work. And the kitchen space was non-existent because a table and chairs had been moved there from where Matt's bed was because it turns out the apartment was only for two people.
And then there was the outside.... Wow! Welcome to the pigeon ghetto! This is what we found directly outside our door.
We are all pretty sure that a pigeon exploded here! I have never seen so many pigeons in such a small space. Every apartment we could see was covered in poo and feathers and they made the most disturbing sounds all night. There's no better noise to wake up to than a chorus of pigeons purring and slapping salmons outside your window.
And this is outside according to his site vs reality. Hrm.
On top of all this the wifi wouldn't connect and we had to hack into the restaurant next door's so that I could send an email explaining our grievances. Surprisingly we were told that his friend would contact us the next day to show us an alternative. Whilst we weren't too excited about having to spend a night here, we were pleased that it would only be one and that the next day would solve all our problems.
Wrong.... We heard nothing from the "friend" until 12pm when there was a knock on the door and there he was saying he could show us the alternative now if we were free. What a joke! No warning, what if we had gone out like normal ppl instead of waiting around and hoping he would turn up. So off Brim and I went for the 30min walk to show us the alternative while Matt was left to start packing up our shit. On the way we were told we were actually being offered two apartments that shared a bathroom so that there was more room for the three of us... Things were sounding great! Unfortunately, these two "apartments", again using the term EXTREMELY loosely, were glorified crack dens and were somehow worse than where we were.
So we ended up staying where we were and made do with the shitty situation. The wifi didn't get fixed until 9pm the second night and still didn't work after we could actually connect so they shouldn't have bothered. When we left the apartment was in a better state than when we arrived so they had a win there! The cable TV surprisingly worked so we did get to watch hours of Spongebob dubbed in Dutch, much to our amusement.
Rant over.
