I usually use something like Booking.com or AirBNB to ensure I have a place to stay when travelling. I hate the latter, and try to use the former to find more reasonable options to stay at. The AirBNB side of things tends to be a total waste of money given so many people now list homes or rooms or apartments with just the least amount of effort while charging insane amounts of money per night. Sometimes more than hotels given the insulting cleaning fees that end up in the cost of things. What am I paying for if I also have to clean the place myself? And what am I paying for when most properties listed have the laziest and absolute minimum regarding utensils? Booking tends to be what I use instead for shorter stays given the wider variety of places that end up listed. I've found some great gems as a result, one of which recently was a really cultural building in the heart of Tbilisi. A beautiful home with a courtyard. Old wooden stairs and walls. The building turned into a hostel type of thing for travellers. For less than $20 per night, I got a private room in a beautiful traditional home with access to a kitchen, shower, and air conditioned room that came with my own cozy lighting and private key to lock the door if I wished to do so. I've never seen anything at a similar price on AirBNB.
A place found on Booking seemed fine, though one review detailed a particular host that didn't seem to have the friendliest tone with them: something about how they had been accused of constantly using the washing machine according to some neighbours. What interested me during the stay was that the host was in fact one of those neighbours, living above in one of the apartments within the same old Soviet era building. I'll move on from that though. This was the only somewhat negative review of the place, to which the rest seemed completely fine. A spacious apartment that didn't scream soulless AirBNB and actually looked like a real home somewhere. A great location within the beautiful small town of Borjomi in Georgia. Which came with great views of the surrounding nature from the balcony. I could've lived there permanently, I must admit. A place that I certainly would've managed to grow used to. I even imagined it to some degree, the thought of small town living deep in the mountains. The quiet peace that comes with it. Though it wasn't all it seemed. And this was from one of the first nights in the place, to which we witnessed criminals hiding from the police beneath our very balcony in the street below. Police cars circling around while one of the criminals served as a scout.
It was here that I began to feel the small town wasn't as calm as it had seemed. With some odd people to say the least roaming around. Not just the tourists that flocked to the resort town for its vast landscapes nor its natural springs. The apartment had one or two issues from the start: the WiFi wasn't working at all. Now, we weren't travelling to just sit at home and browse the Internet, so it didn't bother me much. This was met with a television that also didn't work. The same argument there. Though the owner of the place, not the host, stated that in a few days they'll have someone come and fix it. Prior to this, the owner confused our arrival time with morning, even though I had stated twice that we would arrive in the night. I shrugged off that side of things, it didn't really bother me given there could've been basic language complications between us that led to some confusion, and who travels to watch TV and cling to the Internet? Though these were just minor hiccups in the greater scheme of things. For a few days later, one day before we were meant to leave, and shortly after breakfast, the host knocked on the door unexpectedly. I opened it and she began to say something in Russian. The people with me translated it, to which they stated that for some reason we shouldn't be there anymore. We were meant to have left a few hours ago.
This wasn't true given we had booked for a specific date. We had about 24 hours left until we had to leave. The host came in immediately, started complaining about this, not believing us even when I showed the confirmation in Booking. A call was made to the owner of the apartment, who I assume lived elsewhere and delegated most of the responsibility to this just highly unwelcoming woman. She confirmed things and even then there was no apology. At the same time, we informed her that the door from the kitchen to the balcony didn't work. She instantly began to accuse us of breaking the handle despite multiple handles in the apartment just not working that great. We had just had breakfast and were about to begin planning our day over coffee. The kitchen needed a bit of a tidy up, but she noticed this on her way in to look at the handle, to which she complained about that too. The whole experience was hellish with her raised voice heard throughout the apartment, total chaos as everyone scattered around. As a group of men came in to fix the WiFi problem around the same time. Imagine travelling, being tired, just having breakfast and some coffee, to which someone comes bursting in with others and insists you've done wrong. She never did apologise for this behaviour, for accusing us of wrongdoing and bursting in in such a manner.
I talked privately with the owner who seemed much more reasonable. She explained that she wasn't surprised that parts of the apartment needed some repair, having had many guests over the summer. She even said to "never mind" the unfriendly host, seemingly aware of her general notion to people. Which surprised me because I certainly would not delegate the social side of my business to a woman known for having a poor ability to engage with others. I tried to be reasonable and explain everything to the owner, to which she did also reply with reason. That was nice given the total shitshow with the host. To the point where we didn't even really feel comfortable leaving our expensive items around the apartment once we discovered the host not only had a key, but also lived on the floor above us. And that's the first real bad experience I've had with Booking; or any other home booking platform for that matter. I've had mediocre stays in places that aren't so great, but never poor experiences with the people directly. Definitely left a poor taste in the mouth and ruined some of the stay.