Hostel from Hell

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I have stayed in A LOT of hostels over the years. After backpacking through South East Asia in 2008 and visiting some of the poorest areas of the world where accommodation is extremely basic, I was amazed to discover that actually Berlin is now home to what can only be described as possibly the worst hostel I have ever encountered. Never before have I seen anything like it. I have left the name out of this rant for obvious reasons. (I don’t fancy a lawsuit on my hands) However to all you backpackers out there, I would definitely suggest doing your homework before booking any hostels and if there are no reviews online, I would suggest looking elsewhere, as there may well be a reason for this.

Upon arriving in Berlin we had the dreaded task of locating our accommodation. We had been pre-warned that we should phone the hostel in advance of our arrival as the owner was not always there. We decided not to do this unless absolutely necessary as we didn’t really like the thought of paying international charges. We arrived at the hostel willing someone to be there and were instead greeted by what looked like a derelict, ghetto style building. Not the best first impressions! The entire hostel was sealed up with heavy metal shutters and looked either closed down or like we were in the most dangerous location on earth… As should have been predicted the owner was nowhere to be seen and there was no way into the building. Excellent. Shortly after we arrived a fellow hostel resident who was standing nearby came over to assist us. He offered to let us into the building where we could wait in the kitchen. As we walked into the kitchen, a woman was sitting down at one of the tables. We assumed that she was another guest at the hostel and said our hellos. About 5 minutes after making the call to the owner, the woman sitting in in the kitchen suddenly got up and asked us to follow her. We did as requested and she led us to our room. We weren’t too sure what was going on at this point however she seemed to have keys to our room and have details of our outstanding balance which reassured us that she did actually work there. Why she couldn’t have checked us in from the beginning we will never understand. The owner never did appear either.

We had a look at our room and the realisation quickly hit that this was not going to be a pleasant stay. The room looked like it needed quite a scrub and was also extremely dark, due to the shutters outside. I also thought I had crushed a large group of mice as soon as I dared sit on the bed.

We decided to go for a quick power nap shortly after arriving as we had been up since 4.00am. This proved unsuccessful however as the minute we put our head down to rest we could hear a loud voice coming from directly outside our window. After 30 minutes of sheer frustration we decided to give up with the nap idea and head out for the day. Upon further investigation we were then shocked to realise that a chair was chained to the drainpipe outside our window and this seemed to be a (very random) hangout spot for the hostel residents or any other passing strangers. The next 7 nights were going to be a lot of fun!

The hostel had three bathrooms; one was covered in hair the entire duration of our stay, one had a cracked shower and filthy floor and the last was so disgusting I couldn’t even set foot in it. Let’s just say that showering involved shoes at all times!

As if this was not bad enough, our hostel remained in a state of poor cleanliness the entire duration of our stay. There was a *cleaner*, but her shift seemed to be one hour a day, if that, which resulted in nothing ever being done. She only seemed to appear to check people in and then disappear swiftly after. We never met the owner either. I’m not too sure if they ever visit the premises.

Aside from our negative lodgings we had a fantastic time in Berlin. Berlin is an incredible city; one of a kind. The people are friendly (even though my German attempts are shocking at times), the city is full of culture and history which caters for all tastes and the art scene is out of this world. All in all Berlin is a fantastic place to visit. Just make sure you don’t book the hostel from hell 😉

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