This “furnished studio” was actually a windowless (air vents onto a dirty courtyard, no natural light) single room with a double bed and a bar stool as furniture, linked by a corridor to a kitchenette and a bathroom with no hot water in sinks, but decent hot water from electric shower head. There was no microwave, no toaster oven, no coffeemaker or kettle, two very old pots and barely any dishes, and no dustbins except one in the bathroom for leaving used toilet paper.

The building in Laureles, Medellin is, like many buildings without doormen, locked from the inside and out. You need a key to leave. This one has two outer locks. The one on the outer gate hardly works; it takes five minutes of jiggling the key to open it. The lock on the front door of the building is slightly better.

The reason this is so dangerous – beyond the fact the exits should never be locked – is that the burner of the gas stove in the kitchen is very damaged and eight-inch flames shoot out when you try to use it. It is a miracle there has not been a fire in the building.

The building is old, the rooms are tiny, the hallways and the apartments themselves are dirty (I looked in to a neighboring one). The “Super Precio” of about $500 US/month is not a great deal in Colombia. Someone should do some sort of spot checking on the properties, most of all for safety issues.

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