Santa Croce Mini-hotel

My mother and I arrived on July 12 and planned to stay until July 17. We were welcomed by an old man who couldn't hear well and we weren't able to communicate effectively with him even though we both speak Italian. We paid for the whole stay without getting a receipt and were given a room different than the one we had booked. We didn't realize this at first as we were very tired and confused after a long journey and the man had already left by the time we realized the mistake. We had no choice but to sleep in that room until the next morning when the guy responsible with breakfast and cleaning arrived. We told him our concerns and he said we weren't given the room we had booked because it had been occupied until that morning and said he would clean it and we could move in it. We were outraged, why would someone else be in the room we had booked? Anyway, the room in question (Room with private external bathroom) looked nothing like the pictures, it had no balcony although the listing said it did and was poorly cleaned. We were already fed up at this point as we found the situation unacceptable and decided to leave and search for a different accomodation. The guy there had my mother talk over the phone with the host who refused to return the money for the remaining 4 nights of our stay and repeatedly blamed booking.com for the confusion even though it had nothing to do with them. It was a terrible experience, the place is not properly cleaned and maintained, not to mention that the bathroom window of the room we slept in for one night opened into a balcony that was full of thrash and mess. Unfortunately we were too stressed out and furious to think about taking pictures of the conditions there.