Friendly Rentals
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One hit and one miss
First the hit......We rented the Melia apartment in Rome for 5 nights. This was a beautiful apartment, even better than the pictures. It was clean and comfortable and everything worked. We were met on time by our contact person at arrival and departure and received our damage deposit back. This apartment is in a very nice building in a safe and attractive part of Rome. There are 2 metro stops nearby which makes getting around very easy. Now, for the miss.....If you read the reviews it seems to be a prevalent problem in Barcelona. I'm not sure why that would be other than they have an uncaring staff there. We rented the Padilla Terrace apartment for 3 nights (thank God it was only 3!!!) This apartment's AC did not work. As soon as we discovered it we called our contact person, John (we never saw John himself throughout our stay so I'm not sure why he was a designated contact person). He said to look for the remotes for the units. No remotes existed. He sent another person to verify there were no remotes which was ridiculous and a waste of time. He didn't want to contact the owner of the apartment for some reason and said he would contact the cleaner to see if they had put the remotes somewhere. We heard nothing further that day and in order to breathe we were more or less forced to sleep with the windows wide open. We got very little sleep during our stay because of the unrelenting traffic noise on the streets below. The next day I contacted John again (all the while my cell phone bill is going up, up, up from these calls and text messages. The final bill for these texts and calls was nearly $20). Hours later John replied that he had a call in to the owner and was awaiting a response. No further word that day and meanwhile whenever we are in the apartment (on the 5th floor) we are sweltering in the heat. On our final full day I texted John yet again and heard nothing back until after I emailed the friendly rental company to complain. John then texted back that he had talked to the owner, the AC unit on the roof was damaged beyond repair and needed replaced! I asked for at least a partial refund due to the apartment not having AC which I'm sure we paid a premium for and it is something that I always have at the top of my criteria list. John said he asked the owner about a partial refund and was awaiting his decision. I never heard another word from John or Friendly Rentals. Now, for the other problems with this apartment. The shower, quite frankly, is disgusting. The grout is moldy and gross. The shower has one of those glass partitions which allowed the water from the shower to splash out onto the slick tile floor. We had to use one of our allotted 3 towels on the floor to catch the water. The towels, which are described as "fresh" in the listing are anything but fresh. They are worn and smell musty when damp. The apartment has very poor lighting. I felt blind in there after the sun went down. There was a burned out bulb (one of the only 2) in the bathroom. The bed? Forget about it! This was the worst bed in the history of forever! We could not sleep together in this bed because every time one of us moved even slightly the bed would squeak. I ended up sleeping on the sofa while my husband used the bed. The listing states there is a "drying machine". There is not. Be prepared to set up the drying rack and use that if you do any laundry. The outdoor terrace could be lovely if the sunshade were not destroyed. You will be in the full sun for the majority of the day so pack your sunscreen! There is a 1/2 bath off the hall which would be a big bonus if only the door wasn't broken and you could close it! And to add insult to injury we were forced to leave the apartment earlier than planned on our last morning because the power was going to be shut off to the building, the elevator would be inoperable and there was NO way we could carry all our luggage down 5 flights of stairs. I suppose that really isn't Friendly Rentals responsibility but it was just further aggravation. One positive note from this experience was Julie. Julie was the lovely lady who met us at the apartment at arrival and returned early to give back our deposit before the power was shut off. Kudos to Julie! Interestingly, I wrote reviews on the Friendly website for both of these apartments. The one for the Rome apartment, which was a glowing review is published but the one for Barcelona is not. As other reviewers have stated they don't publish the bad reviews, so beware! I feel this is very unfair and because of this I will not use Friendly Rentals in the future. We will go back with and stick with VRBO in the future.