This page exists in order to document the poor treatment my wife and I received from Chic Rentals on our recent trip to Madrid, Spain.  Every other experience we had on our trip was fantastic.  The people in Madrid were incredibly friendly.  The food was delicious and the museums spectacular.  However, we had a terrible experience with Chic Rentals.  If you are looking for a place to stay in Madrid, make sure to read the information below before making your choice.

 

I found the web site for Chic Rentals via Google and found the prices and apartments to be in line with what we were looking for.  We have rented apartments in Europe before in places like Grenada, Spain and Amalfi, Italy and had had nothing but great experiences, so we decided to book one of the apartments (Apt. Taylor) by providing an initial deposit of 216 euros.  After booking with a credit card via the website, I received an email confirmation from the bank that processed the transaction.  I did not, however, receive any confirmation from Chic Rentals.  I decided to let this go for a week or two thinking maybe they were a small operation that didn't have the bandwidth to respond right away.  About 2 weeks before the trip I still had not received a confirmation email from Chic Rentals, however, so I emailed them to confirm the booking.  At this point, I received an email from Ximena Bares (who claims to be the owner of the company) stating that the apartment I had booked was no longer available due to electrical issues.  No big deal, but I did wonder what would have happened if I hadn't emailed her.  She suggested we switch to another apartment for the same price.  Her suggested apartment, however, was not in the central area of the city where we wanted to stay, so I asked if she had anything closer.  At this point, she recommended Apt. Stewart, which appeared to be agood option.  Upon further review of the website description of Apt. Stewart, we discovered that it was a smoking apartment and I emailed Ximena to tell her we didn't want a smoking apartment.  At this point, she assured me that the apartment was new, that only 2 groups had stayed in the apartment since it was renovated, and that these guests and the owner didn't smoke.  We were convinced and told her to confirm the booking for Apt. Stewart.  So far so good!

 

We flew overnight from the US to Madrid and arrived at about 10:00 AM.  Upon arrival in Madrid, we called Ximena as planned so she could meet us at the apartment to give us the keys.  We had previously given her our flight information and arrival time so she could make sure everything was ready when we arrived.  When we arrived at the apartment, the cleaning person was still finishing up and Ximena had not yet arrived, so we waited in the apartment.  Ximena arrived 10-15 minutes later and showed us around the apartment.  For the most part, it was as described on the website, but appeared a bit shabbier than in the pictures.  It certainly did not look like it had recently been renovated.

 

 

Nothing stood out immediately as a huge issue and we're not very picky, so we took the keys and gave Ximena our credit card number for the damage deposit (200 euros) and remaining rental charge (504 euros).  The cleaning lady had finished at this point and indicated that someone's laundry (a friend of hers or of Ximena's, we couldn't tell) was still in the machine.  Ximena asked what our plans were for the day so he would know when to pick up his laundry.  I'm not sure whether she intended for him to come while we were there (so we could let him in) or while we were away (to minimize the annoyance for us.)  Either way, we agreed to place his laundry in the front room near the entrance to the apartment when the machine finished.  This was kind of weird.  Ximena and the cleaning lady left.  We were tired, but wanted to stay up as long as possible to get in-sync with the local time.  There's a load of laundry running and a random person coming to our apartment at an unspecified time to pick it up.  Not the end of the world, but I found this to be a bit unprofessional.

 

After Ximena and cleaning lady left, we decided to take showers.  My wife went first and indicated that the shower was on a raised pedestal with no curtain, virtually guaranteeing that water would spray all over the bathroom floor.  Indeed, it seems as if this was the shower's primary design intent.  Additionally, the toilet was located at the far end of the bathroom, requiring you to climb over the shower "pedestal" to reach it. 

 

 

Now, because the floor around the toilet is completely isolated by the shower "pedestal" and because it has no drain, it essentially becomes a 1/2 inch deep pool of water.  We literally had to take our socks off and walk through a pool of water everytime we used the toilet.  The bathroom also smelled like a moldy locker room as a result of all the standing water and the seams where the walls met the floor were eroding.  "Chic" is not the word that comes to mind.  Didn't we learn our lessons from the cholera epidemic?

 

 

And it gets better, we also noticed several electrical fixtures that were unfinished or broken, resulting in exposed wiring in the bathroom.

 

 

After taking showers, we decided to leave the apartment and walk around.  The condition of the bathroom was annoying, but we figured we'd give it some time to dry out and see if it was liveable.  The laundry guy had not arrived yet, so we set his laundry in a basket near the door as we had agreed with Ximena.  I didn't like to idea of a random person coming into our apartment while we were gone, but what are you going to do.  We spent all day walking around the old streets and plazas of Madrid - it truly is one of my favorite cities in the world.  We ate lunch and an early dinner before returning to the apartment at around 7:00 PM.  We had been awake for 30 hours at this point and needed to sleep.  Upon returning to the apartment, we found the same 1/2 inch thick puddle of water surrounding the toilet and that the laundry guy had still not arrived. We also realized that the neighbors were home and that they loved loud house music and Rage Against the Machine.  Over the next 6-7 hours, I would estimate 20-30 people arrived at the neighbors party.  It was so loud and our walls were so thin that it felt like the party was in the next room.  After the events of the day, we were in no mood to make a noise complaint in a foreign language to 20 drunk people, so were waited and suffered.  Unfortunately for us, the other apartments in the building we in a different area and not nearly as close as ours, so no one else complained until 2:00 in the morning.

 

After getting some sleep, we woke up and emailed Ximena about the problems.  By this point, we had the feeling that Ximena had not been totally honest with us.  She said the apartment was new, that only 2 people had stayed there, and that no one had smoked.  But after spending a night there, the apartment felt like a place where people had been partying for a long time.  Broken electrical fixtures, dumpy/smelly bathroom, stained carpet, old/well-used ashtrays, scuffs and scratches on the walls. 

 

 

Plus, the lack of confirmation and follow-up regarding our original apartment and the launrdy situation gave us the impression that Chic Rentals was not very concerned about us as customers.  We didn't want our trip ruined by this experience, so we booked a hotel room and move out of Apt. Stewart.  I called Ximena later that day and explained the situation to her and asked that we come to an agreement regarding the rental fee.  I proposed that we pay for the first night and a cleaning fee and that she refund the rest of our money.  She indicated that she thought the apartment was OK and that we could not get a refund just because it didn't suit our taste.

 

Chic Rentals has not only kept the full rental fee for the 8 day booking, but they have also kept the 200 euro damage deposit.  We filed a complaint about the apartment with the Madrid city government and we will be working with our bank to dispute both the rental charges as well as the damage deposit.  I'll update this page with the results of our dispute, but until then beware of Chic Rentals!