Complaint Review: VILLA ZAMBONIA 68

Our group of 8 rented a Villa Zambonia for one week (of a three week Italy trip) from an online company called TuscanyNow. We selected that Villa based on the beautiful pictures on the TuscanyNow website and the recomendation of their agent. The Villa was  NOTHING like the pictures represented. It was not very clean when we arrived and the place was infected with ants and stink bugs which were everywhere. When we returned each day after a day of touring, we found thousands of ants all over the kitchen counters and stink bugs on the walls, in our beds and on the furniture, everywhere. The Villa was not comfortable at all. There was no place to sit and relax as the furniture was so old and uncomfortable that noone wanted to sit on it. The pool was full of leaves and dirty and noone in our group would consider going in. 

The entire week we left the Villa early in the morning and would not return until late at night becasue noone wanted to spend time there. This was my first dealings with TuscanyNow and it will be my last. They just did not adequately check out this property, the pictures on their website did not accurately represent the rental and our group got stuck with a Villa that was in disrepair and definately not suited for renting to the public.

If we had not paid in full in advance of our trip, we would have never stayed at this place. I considered calling TuscanyNow when we arrived at the Villa but concluded there was nothing that they could do for us since we paid in advance and this was the only property in the general area they represented.  Also, we arrived late in the afternoon and after a long trip to Italy, our group was very tired and the town of Vigasio is very small and we could not easily find alternative logging. We decided to try to make the best of a very bad situation.

After the trip, I wrote to Simon, the owner of TuscanyNow. He appolized for our bad experience  and tried to explain  that ants and stink bugs have been a real issue in Italy this year and that he had not gotten any other negative feedback regarding this Villa. He did not offer to compensate us in any way for  this terrible experience. Our group rented two additional Villas (from rental agents other than TuscanyNow) for the two week period following the week at Villa Zambonia, and we did not find one ant or bug for the rest of the trip. The other two Villas we rented were exactly as they were represented by the other rental websites.

We are not the kind of people that easily complain, however, this Villa as really bad and we are not satisfied that TuscanyNow did all it should have done to adequately check out this property or deal with our complaints.