Airbnb Tips: How to Avoid Rental Nightmares in Europe

Some were not; one of them was just awful. We’ll talk more about that later, but first let’s take a look at the current scene and how to best handle it.

Since Airbnb (and its clones) emerged, they have faced serious backlash from some quarters. In Europe, residents complain bitterly about the over-tourism and property prices have risen so much that many find themselves priced out of their own property market.

Countries around the world are now looking for ways to restrict and/or regulate the list of landowners on Airbnb and their ilk. The mayor of Marseille, for example, recently said that his city’s registry turned down only 4% of residents applying to become short-term tenants. Today, there are 82% refusals. Marseille is also a community of inhabitants The Airbnb “brigade” who sniffs out illegal rentals – and the mayor has also decreed that all safes must henceforth no longer be visible from the streets of Marseille (nor be removed by municipal bolt cutters).

Paris has won a lawsuit against Airbnb, which means that all rental of second homes in Paris is prohibited; All homeowners are limited in the number of days they can rent out their primary residence on the platform. In addition, any owner – French or not – renting a property in France via Airbnb must declare their income to the French tax authorities, which makes the idea much less attractive.

Even though the bureaucracy has had its day, there are still thousands and thousands of rentals available across Europe. The trick is to make sure you get (a) what you pay for and (b) something that looks a lot like the heavenly photos found on booking sites.

For two 71-year-old men who have traveled 6,000 km of Europe so far, the booking must-haves were: parking (which can be extremely difficult in Europe), free Wi-Fi and good value for money. price. Anyone can pay a lot and be guaranteed a luxury apartment – but then why bother? You might as well stay in a hotel…

Here are the few times we got it wrong or the owners didn’t do us (or themselves) any favors and what to look for when booking a stay:

1) Non-representative marketing/claims on the website. In Italyone rental said it had a balcony and patio. We knew it was small (one bedroom, one bathroom) but it was more of a tall, narrow closet; the patio and balcony were identical, the size of a postage stamp.

2) Lack of relevant information. In Spain, one property said on the website: “Parking available.” In fact, parking was not “available”; what the owner meant was that we could park on the street – but there was no room left on the narrow one-way street. He also neglected to tell us that the apartment was on the third floor, with no elevator – which wasn’t much fun when you were carrying heavy bags.

3) Wi-Fi. An apartment in Italy had Wi-Fi – but a terribly weak signal that eventually disappeared completely. We texted the owner. He didn’t respond the three days we were there. However, he was in touch like lightning when we forgot to leave the tourist tax on the table. It received a bad review.

The hardest things to avoid are the things people don’t tell you. An apartment in Spain had a bathroom that smelled bad. The owners were obviously aware of this and had installed one of those periodic scent dispensers – but it was simply overpowered.

The worst example we encountered occurred in the beautiful French lakeside town of Annecy. It was billed as “a superior studio.” It was actually a shoddy apartment complex, the size of a chicken coop. Ours had nothing to do with the pretty photo on the website.

The complex was designed to be managed entirely remotely: there was no reception area or staff; it had a terrible entry/exit system. It was on a busy main road, no parking. Jennie had to run while I did several loops around the block. Upon arrival, she was texted a code for the front door and a code for the safe located outside the unit (you couldn’t call it an apartment). Inside the unit was the remote control to raise the gate arm to the second floor parking lot.

She then had to come down, flag me down and direct me to the ramp – the narrowest ramp in the world; the wheels of the car squeaked, rubbing against the sides. When we left, I had to help a French driver by steering his Audi onto the ramp – he was stuck and shaking, thinking he and his car were going to plunge over the edge.

It didn’t stop there. Safe in the car park, we tried to enter through the door leading from the car park to the accommodation – but none of the keys would fit. If another victim – sorry, fellow traveler – hadn’t gotten out, we would have had to drop our bags on the Terror Ramp to the main street entrance gate.

It didn’t stop there either. There was something wrong with the front door. If you pressed the exit button to leave, often nothing happened; the door remained stubbornly closed. If there had been a fire, we would have all been fried; How they managed to take this place beyond the French equivalent of health and safety was a mystery to Hercule Poirot.

So what can we do to avoid horrors like those Accommodation Annecy (don’t be discouraged, Annecy itself is a great beauty)? Best Tips:

Paul Lewis and Jennie Brockie were drive across Europe (Italy, France, Spain and Portugal) over the last three months.