GINEVRA IN COLOSSEUM

We planned to travel to Rome in a party of 7 with my elderly parents and were very careful in choosing an apartment as my father has a bad hip and really struggles with stairs. We chose the Rainbow apartment and e-mailed the owner asking her to confirm that it was on the 4th floor with a lift. Tiziana confirmed this by e-mail. When we arrived the man who met us took us up two flights of stairs to the apartment - we told him that this was the wrong apartment, ours was on the 4th floor with a lift. He started by saying that they did not have another apartment, this was the only one but when we showed him the e-mail confirming it, he then said that the other one had a problem with the bathroom so they were putting us in this one. We told him that we would not have booked it if we had known and considered trying to find a hotel. He then offered us a discount of 30 euros a night. We accepted as we were unlikely to find anything else in Rome at easter but it caused considerable problems for my father. The second problem was the sleeping arrangements. The apartment we thought we had booked had a double room (parents) a triple room (our three teenagers) and a double sofa bed in the lounge for us. This apartment had a double room, a room with two doubles (one on a high mezzanine with a ladder) and a single in the lounge. In the end we dragged the double mattress off the mezzanine onto the lounge floor every night.
The apartment was clean but in need of repair and legs were falling off bedside tables and lamps were held together with electrical tape. The kitchen was not equipped for 7 people - loads of plates but only 4 cups and a few small glasses.
Location was superb with supermarket across the road and lots of good restaurants nearby.
Advice to travellers - check which apartment you are booking (although to be honest we had confirmation in writing and it didn't do any good)
Advice to homeaway.co.uk - get the owners to sort out their advert - there are three tabs for three apartments but all the descriptions are the same and the photos are all muddled in together.