AirBnb, a cautionary tale...

The Many Joys of AirBnB

AirBnb is simply the greatest invention for traveling since International flight and airport bars. There is hardly a city or a town or a tiny village where you can’t instantly find and book an apartment, a house, a room to stay. No more being locked into the hotel experience -  an often expensive, bubble-like experience that serves to separate you from the city you’re staying in. Hungry? Have an overpriced dinner in our restaurant, right next to the lounge/bar, just to the left of the lobby. Don’t wander the streets searching out hidden gems and mom and pop place to eat.  Need a haircut, a toothbrush, your laundry done? No need to ever leave the hotel.

AirBnB changes that. It plunks you down smack in the middle of the neighborhood in someone’s house right by the trattorias, the wine shops, the pizza take away, the bakeries and coffee shops. And in my experience 98 % of the time the owner/host is happy to fill you in on his/her favorite things to see and do. Case in point, one of the highlight of this trip was our day in the little town of, Nemi on a tiny town scratched onto a steep hill overlooking a perfect gem of a lake, in a trattoria where we were the only patron on a rainy Thursday. A priceless experience.

I kid you not, this was the view from our table at Sirena del Lago Trattoria. I had the minnestrina and the Pollo alla Romana, but that is another story.

All good, tutto bene -  until it isn’t.

We’ve spent nearly two months in Rome, a wonder of a slice of life, but this particular AirBnb stay has been somewhat cursed.  We’re not just whining. We’re actually pretty laissez-fare when it comes to traveling.  I’ve long enjoyed the art of getting lost and embracing the odd and convoluting experiences gained because of those lost moments that I never would have had otherwise. E.g. The ristorante Lonely Planet says is a must see is closed for a cousin’s wedding. Well, finding an even more obscure hidden away osteria Is often even better and far more interesting.

But here’s my list of my whines about what has gone wrong during this stay, in ascending order:

Wait… first the good.  This two month rental was the perfect location on top of Gianicolo Hill. 5 minutes from the Terraza Garibaldi and a panoramic view of all of Rome’s rooftops – or Fontana Acqua Paulo with the same view slightly down the hill.

The Monte Verde neighborhood with astoundingly good restaurants, maccerias, a pescheria, pizza, cafes and huge open space parks is a mere 5 to 10 minute walk away. Then of course, the Trastevere itself 10 minutes down the hill. Maybe the coolest place on the planet, certainly in Rome. But even the rest of Rome, the monuments, the Centro Storica, the huge piazza and outdoor markets, The forking Vatican, are all walkable distance.

Our little apartment was perfect, cute little kitchen and rooftop giardino. Perfect. Until it all descended into Hell and it wasn’t.

The list:

#1  No washer and dryer.  Advertised in the AirBnb listing, but sadly broken and a host who made excuses about it costing too much to fix at the moment and who stopped trying to get a repairman to even come look at it the moment we stopped complaining (three days spent waiting for the daily excuse from Alessandro the repairman as to what got in his way today). We silently fumed as two months in one place needs a washer and this place wouldn’t have even been considered if it hadn’t been for the listed washing machine.  So we got to schlep down into Monte Verde every couple of weeks dragging our sacks of laundry to the lavenderia.  Not the worst thing in the world, but it IS winter and the weather doesn’t always sync with our dirty laundry, not to mention a rather creative pricing structure by the older gentleman at the shop. Three loads of wash and fold have hit us for $44 Euros so far. He’s the only game in town, so arguing is not an option.

#2  The hot water tank stopped working and Bob, our host having fled to Canada on holiday, took 4 days to arrange to get a plumber over here to fix it. Alessandro was again full of excuses -  A 10 minute fix when he finally got here; just some air in the lines, but four days with no shower or dish washing wasn’t fun, not to mention another 4 days of waiting around for a plumber who promised but didn’t show, wasting valuable Rome exploring time. 

And the Grand finale, #3 wherein Bob, has as previously mentioned hoofed it off to Canada for Christmas, forgot to pay his electricity and internet bill and last night at 3am the power got shut off.  I found the bill in the mailbox and it looks like Bob hadn’t paid his bill in 3 months. Yikes. What’sApp on the café wi-fi and Bob tells me to go look for someone name Lucia at an immobliare.it store in Monte Verde and she’ll pay it. Of course, Christmas being around the corner, the shop is closed till January, so I end up tracking down a Tobacchi negozio a few blocks away (like a NYC smoke shop) to personally pay Bob’s bills for him and put my hopes on the vagaries of Italian Electric company bureaucracy to somehow flip the switches to turn back on the power (the guy at the Tobacchi store said 5, forse 6 ora). So I sit writing in the dark like a Beat poet in a lower eastside flop in 1953, hoping for the lights to miraculously come one.

The only real upside today, as I prefer to stay positive (I AM after all in Rome and not stuck in Fresno or South Dakota or Moldova), is that I got some good practical language practice as the guy at the Tobacchi negotio spoke even less English than I do Italian, but we communicated well, paid off the bill and frankly, random successful adventures like this is exactly why I don’t stay in hotels. The Tobacchi store guy got to practice his English on a real Americano, and I got to negotiate my way in my caveman Italiano with a friendly Roman and bluff my way through a somewhat difficult situation. 

Hour 4 of the guesstimated 5 – 6 coming up and I’m still in the dark though, hoping for light and a hot shower sometime before the sun goes down.

*update.  Hour 37  and we finally got the power switched on.  Buon Natale!