Hostel Santa Monaca in Florence

The worst hostel in my life. I was put up with boys. The room itself stank of urine or something else rotten, not to mention the whole hotel in general. When I asked to be moved to another room where there were more girls, I was refused. The atmosphere was like a prison.
The kitchen was extremely inconvenient and dirty. Dirty dishes and no cooking supplies such as oil and salt. The common room had uncomfortable wooden seats. Overall, it resembled a prison.
On the second day, they put an alcoholic in the room, who shouted at night and polluted the air. In other words, the hostel does not check who it accommodates.
They also charged extra money for a tourist tax, which they had absolutely no right to do, because Booking stated that the price was final and no additional fees would be charged.
Despite the nice architecture and potential, they didn't make a hostel, but some kind of animal shed. It's horrible, I don't recommend it at all.

Very negative experience: theft, bad smells, and insecurity.
The service is poor, and the facilities are even worse. There's a bad smell throughout the hostel.
The people you might end up with in your room are dangerous; in our case, we were robbed in a single night. Overall, a dangerous and unpleasant atmosphere.
To top it all off, the reception staff were incredibly rude; one of them asked us for cigarettes as if we were on the street.

Services:
- Poor security: reception closed from 3am to 6am (employee was sleeping in the back of the reception, we saw his folding bed) and no phone number available at the reception in case of emergency.
- No security camera in the corridor next to the reception.
- Reception is far from the rooms, the employees can't hear anything if emergencies occur on the floors above and they don't make any rounds (especially to keep the place quiet at night).
- At 3:30 am, we were physically attacked by one of the roomers while we were sleeping. We knocked on both doors of the reception and called the hostel and nobody answered. We had to leave the hostel in the middle of the night and come back at 6am, since we felt safer in the streets than at the hostel. The morning employee was not very empathetic and did not accommodate us at all. He even said that he would help us to fill in the police report in the same day and did nothing. He let the man (he and his friend could not be found in their computer reservation system) who attacked us sleep until the morning while we were without a room and had nowhere to go (all the other hostels were full ). *We were not even reimbursed for that all-nighter. The next day we went to file a police report on the spot. The staff did not take any responsibility for this event that occurred under their roof. Moreover, when we reported this incident to the manager, she did not listen to us at all and tried to alleviate the situation by telling us that what happened was not so serious and that the person who attacked us was a "good person".
Rooms:
- Not much insulation: you can hear other people talking in neighboring rooms.
- Doors of other rooms very noisy, to the point of waking you up: they should post signs that you should close the doors very quietly or adapt their current doors to be less noisy.
- Air conditioning very noisy and they are only installed in the rooms, meaning that there is no AC in the halls, kitchen, bathroom, etc.
- Very noisy neighborhood to sleep well.
* No chance to have a good sleep in this Hostel!
- Lockers very small.
- The facilities like hanging light for reading, towel, washing machine, etc., are very expensive.
- There are not many hooks to hang our laundry and other useful equipment in the room (ex. Mirror).
- Not decorated at all and very cold atmosphere.
- The women's bathrooms are very far from the mixed rooms.
Location: good, close to everything

The place had a rare smell that wasn’t very appealing. The room was just ok and the common room wasn’t comfortable.
It was just ok if you just want to pass the night and make your day through out the city.

The building in itself and location was fine - the beds were comfortable. However, the lockers in the room (for which they sold padlocks) were useless as you could open them effortlessly even with the padlock closed correctly, the locker could not be locked by a padlock. Furthermore, you had to rent a bedside lamp for your stay if you wanted one - in my opinion that is absolutely senseless - what use does it have for me to rent a bed lamp if no one else in my room has one and they leave the light on?
There was a stench in the bathroom and around the hostel and it definitely could have been cleaner.

+air conditioning
+bathroom integrated in room
+we had an all girls room even though we booked a mixed one, which was nice if it was on purpose!! We were really relieved

No great.

Building in itself is nice, facilities like washing machine, common area big enough, kitchen even though is only one stove and short equipment. The staff is not really friendly and they have ridiculous regulations about deposits (for borrowing a towel or a small light for your bed) and timing for using facilities even curfew!!!, i came one afternoon around 1pm from Greve (Tuscan countryside) and i was wet because it rained and i needed to take a shower the member of staff, a lady does not really know how to deal with costumers, did not let me get in to my room until 3:30pm because it was cleaning time!! I understand room need to be cleaned but 2 hours and half it is seem to me exaggerated! Especially when I was not doing a check in i was staying over!!! It is a pity because it is nice place, the cleaning is well done and and the location is very good but definitely it needs more common sense in the customer service