Ernesto at Surf Backpackers Hostel Dispute

"I moved into Ernesto’s flat on September 1st 2013 along with three German students and one Italian student. Before moving in I met with Ernesto and I agreed to put down a $350 deposit and that rent would be $350 per month. Rent for the other students varied from $250 to $300. We spent close to an hour going over the expectations for the flat including if it was OK to have guests, or parties, if you could smoke in the flat, noise limits, laundry etc. To all of our questions Ernesto said it was our flat and as long as we didn’t do any damage to the property it didn’t matter. He acted surprised that we even asked about things like smoking. He appeared to be incredibly relaxed. I asked if we could write everything down in a contract and he said that he would get us one as soon as he could, but it really didn’t matter. He said that he would be in and out of the flat for a few weeks to do things like finish cleaning and organizing some things that were left over from the summer where it functioned as a hostel.

Within the first few weeks of living in the flat though I could tell there would be problems. After the week that Ernesto had announced he would be in and out he continued to come into the flat without announcing, or even ringing the door bell. We asked if he could text us or let us know and he got very weirded out and asked why we cared and what were doing in the flat that we wouldn’t want him to know about. One of the weeks I became incredibly sick and was home in bed a lot, on several occasions he walked into my room without knocking and without any apparent reason for coming in. There was no lock on my door and there was very little I could do about it. He was constantly harassing me and the other 2 girls in the flat and making lewd and suggestive comments.

At one point he called a meeting and told us we were all disgusting and that we needed to clean the flat. I am in general a very neat person and I really couldn’t figure out what he was talking about. Sure, there were a few dishes in the sink and some books on the floor in the living room, but we’re students--what did he expect? Especially since he kept saying it was our flat and we could do what we want. His main problem seemed to be that we were leaving our shoes in the living room and he thought each person should keep them in their rooms. We agreed to this because it wasn’t worth arguing over, but asked him to write down exactly what his expectations were, because we clearly didn’t understand. He said it was common sense and he didn’t want to. He also said at this meeting that he didn’t need to write the contract we had asked for earlier because it was "common sense".

One night after about 2 weeks of living in the flat we had a dinner party for a friend's birthday. We texted Ernesto to let him know and got the "it’s your flat do what you want” response. There were a total of 25 people, including us, which seemed reasonable since it was quite a large flat and it was early. We ate at 8pm and planned to go out to a bar around 9:30 or 10:00. This is quite early for a country where most clubs don’t even open until 12:00. At 9pm Ernesto burst into the flat screaming that we were "fucking crazy" and "how dare we”. Everyone left the flat immediately and we stayed to try to talk with him. He said he wanted us out immediately. I tried to talk with him, and say we didn’t understand what the limits were, and we needed to know what his rules were which is why we had asked so many times for a contract. I tried to be really reasonable and say that maybe it was just a cultural thing and that renting worked differently in the US and Germany. We said that we would never have a party again, we just needed to know what the rules are. To this he responded “this isn’t fucking American Pie” over and over again and he use the word audacious a lot. We left the flat and said we would talk to him in the morning.

The next day we texted him and called him several times, but there was no response. Finally he said we could meet the next day. We asked him if we needed to find a new flat and he said no. The next day he was 2 and a half hours late for the meeting. When he finally did show up he said that it wasn’t him that was mad, it was his aunt and that she was crazy, and that we could stay and it was no problem. We asked him to write down all of the rules so that we would have the problem again and he said that it didn’t matter it was our flat. We decided that we would write a contract and send it to him and have him sign it so that if there was another problem we would have something in writing.

The next day we were eating dinner with two additional friends- making a total of 7 people in the flat- and Ernesto burst in again, saying “how dare you” etc. etc. We said we didn’t know it was a problem, we thought it was reasonable to have 2 people over and this was why we wanted the contract. He said he would sign a contract with people he didn’t trust. He said we were kicked out again.

At this point we decided to move so I went to the help center at the University to ask what they thought I should do and what our legal rights are. They also said that according to Spanish law he couldn’t kick us out and that he was renting the flat illegally which is why he didn’t want a contact. They told me that they had this problem with him every year and they had removed him from the list of people they encouraged students to live with. He just had a power issue and liked taking advantage of foreign students.

The next night we had another meeting with Ernesto to talk about if we were moving out. He came in and was incredibly angry and then was really nice and again said no we should stay, it was just his aunt who was crazy. He said as long as we were quiet we could stay.

3 days later Ernesto texted us and said that he had found another renter and we needed to be out by the 1st of October. At this point we gave up and decided to move to another flat.

The night before we moved we met with Ernesto to make sure everything was in shape to get our deposit back. We cleaned the flat well and everything was accounted for. There was no damage. Ernesto came in and said it looked fine, but he didn’t have money to give us back our deposits. He said he would come back and give it to us the next. He said he also need to look at the utility bill so he would know how much we needed to pay but he said it would be about 40 euros each. He promised that we could see the bill before he took any money from our deposits. I had class the next day and couldn’t come to meet him, but I asked several times if the flat was clean enough to get our deposit back. He said yes it was all fine and "why was I so worried about money- I'm from America”- which I found extremely offensive. I said I needed the money back soon so I could put down a deposit on my new flat. My family doesn’t have a ton of money to begin with and I explained that I received huge fines from my banking taking out money in Spain, and I didn’t want to get out more than I needed to.

Sure enough the next I got a text from my flatmate who was meeting Ernesto that he had shown up 2 hours late and then said the flat was disgusting- even though no one had been in it since he checked the night before. He made my flatmate sweep and mop again and kept complaining about how gross it was and how he was going to have to hire a maid. He said he didn’t have money for the deposit and would give it to us later. He also didn’t have the utility bill.

He missed the next two meetings we arranged and then when he finally did show up he said he didn’t have enough money so he gave us the deposit back missing 100 euros. He said he would give us the extra money the next day. When we texted him the next day he didn’t respond and then 2 days later he finally said he had been in Biarritz for a surf competition and would give us the money later. He never responded again and finally we learned from his brother that he left for Australia for the winter.

He also held several packages and letters that were shipped to the flat for me and my flatmates. We still have not been able to retrieve them.

Three months later we are still missing the money. I want the money back, plus some for the international fees I had to deal with to get out money here, and an apology. My semester in Spain has been something that I have looked forward to since I started college- it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity and he made the first month hell. The Basque County and Donostia are wonderful and it is a shame that people like Ernesto ruin it for visitors. I hope that no other international students have to go through this."