The Nine Worst Apartments We've Ever Rented While Traveling

The Elevator of Death! A building that turned out to be a former sex club! And a bathroom with wiring so bad the apartment caught on fire!

Since becoming digital nomads at the end of 2017, Brent and I have stayed in all kinds of accommodations.

Many have been excellent — others not so much.

Here are some of the absolute worst!

The apartment with the Elevator of Death in Tbilisi, Georgia

Brent and I had only been nomading two years when we arrived at our apartment in Tbilisi, Georgia, in the summer of 2019.

Still being relative newbies, we were horrified by what looked on the outside to be a Soviet-era building in very poor condition.

Not exactly five-star accommodations.

Upon entry, we were further confronted by what we quickly came to call the Elevator of Death:

• It was only a little bigger than a phone booth.

• It was coin-operated. Seriously!

• It had no working emergency button.

• It made an extremely scary sound each time the doors opened or closed.

• It didn’t always go to the floor of the corresponding button — and it didn’t always line up with whatever floor it did stop at!

• And it always seemed to be on the verge of plunging us right down to our deaths!

I think you need to see the video to get the whole picture:

Ironically, the apartment itself on the eleventh floor was pretty great.

The place with wiring so bad the apartment caught on fire in Bansko, Bulgaria

The year before the Elevator of Death, Brent and I were spending a lazy Sunday in our apartment in the Eastern European country of Bulgaria.

And we smelled smoke — plastic-y smoke.

Was someone burning garbage outside? Except we smelled it even after we closed the window.

In fact, the smoke smelled stronger after we closed the window.

Brent and I started searching the apartment to see if we could find the source of the smell, and when Brent opened one of the bathroom doors…

FOOM! The bathroom exploded into flames!

It was the wiring on the water heater, which had been smoldering until Brent opened the door. A few days earlier, an unlicensed electrician had “repaired” it.

Unfortunately, the entire building did not have smoke detectors, fire extinguishers, or even fire alarms. Regulations are lax in Eastern Europe.

Oh, and our phones weren’t working either.

While I grabbed our passports and laptops, Brent ran shouting into the courtyard to find help. I eventually texted our landlord via wifi, and he was the one to call the fire department.

Thankfully, the firemen arrived before the apartment burned down, though we did have to find a new place to live.

Only Murders in the Building, indeed!