Renting a house in Bali might be a dream come true for some and a nightmare for others. Many blogs and subsequent bloggers, travel agencies, and just tourists help feature paradise perfect interiors, breath-taking views from their balconies, and generally idealistic surroundings where you wouldn’t even think about the possibility of anything going wrong. All you experience is a nirvana at first. It is after that first initial positive shock that life takes a heavy and sticky swing at you and your dreams of paradise. I am just preparing you for the next couple of paragraphs.

During our two months stay, from November to first dates of January, we have rented two houses. See my review of both houses and tips on positive accommodation renting in Bali below.

#1 House

Bali house photo

Though the reviews are good I would not stay in this villa again.
While nice at first, as it turned out there was a brothel right behind the villa where night activity outperformed day activity.
  • Pros were the pool, big and spacious rooms, TV and air cons as well as fans in the common areas. Beautiful decor and very accommodating staff.
  • Cons were starting to get more and more apparent by the end of our stay. The music and the noise from the brothel and subsequent traffic made our stay less enjoyable the last two weeks out of four of our stay. Also, it is in this house that we came face to face with a problem number one in Bali, rats. While we were lucky that the rat did not go into our room like it did in the second house, it did jump around the roof and nibbled on some of the food inside the house. I also saw this beast of an animal jumping over two stairs up towards our room one night. Not a pleasant encounter at all.

Bali house photo

 #2 House

There is this weird and not inspiring feeling at all when you see a foot long gecko watching you trying to enjoy* taking shower outside. I’m not talking about the shower that you take to go the pool. I mean the normal bathroom only no walls. It is an outside-inside kind of feel.

Bali house photo
Though It looks awesome on the pictures and sounds like an amazing opportunity from the beginning, it turned out to be completely unpractical. Because when in Asia one must cover everything so that everything else doesn’t crawl, get into, jump in and leave a cute but still a gecko poop on the sink. Seriously! Every time the same place!
Bali house photo
  • Pros: it was a very quiet area with no brothels and minimum amount of noise. The house had a washing machine that we could use. It was on budget with bigger pool that was cleaned better than the rest of the house. Our room was new comparing to the rest of two bedrooms in the house.
  • Cons: Open bathroom proved to be a nuisance as opposed to the “beautiful experience”. Especially at night. Yikes! The house was beautiful and more traditionally built BUT it was old and any hole or nook was an opportunity for a rat nest. This time around the rat made it inside our room. Bali is an island where they do not really care to have proper treatment for pests. In fact there is a holiday that celebrates it. I kid you not! To be precise there are about 2 types of rats in Bali: grey and brown. Based on what I have seen. The brown ones are the ones you want to really avoid ( you would normally want to avoid both of them) . They can jump, bite, and generally do not give a crap about anything or anyone. They are so big that they are the ones attacking stray cats and dogs and not the other way around.

 

Bali house photo

Moreover, if  there is a rainy season then you are in “luck” to witness the most of a local bugs’ life has to offer. In about 20 min after a rain the what looked to be dragonflies are everywhere….I mean it…everywhere. ..there was no escape.

Bali house photo

General household tips on staying in Bali or Asia in general.
  • Do not rent for a long period of time no matter what the reviews say. It might not turn out what you were looking for even if it looks like a paradise one earth on the pictures.
  • If you do rent for a long time, make sure you have a contingency or a contract that states what is included and what is not included in the money that you have paid. I was smart enough to do it for the second house. I had leverage because it was stated in the contract that the washing machine and electricity was included. However, when it cam to the problem with rats the manager was missing in action and did not provide any solutions.
  • Do ask and put it in writing the ifs’ and if-nots’. Our cleaning lady was a dirtying lady really. I am not a clean freak but her way of “cleaning” was really odd. Putting luggage on the bed sheets, leaving dirty stains in the kitchen and just not cleaning some parts of the house because they did not look dirty to her. We tried to pay extra, talk to the manager and make her simply redo the job but it was the same dirty result each time.
  • When renting a house Everything must be closed off. No open kitchens, living rooms, staircases, bathrooms or any space that you would like to use on the every day basis. No open decorative house decor even for air circulation because something will always find a way in.
  • Do not leave food unattended or out in the open. If rats or cats can’t get to it something smaller will.

Bali house photo

Hope it helped to paint a more complete picture of a place a lot of people called a paradise. There are many things to like about Bali and many to hate. On the last day I feel bitter sweet. On one hand I couldn’t wait to get out, on another there were memories made here.

I had a privilege to meet with kind, honest and perky people like our driver Mulu who was like a walking encyclopedia and an easygoing nanny Chomang. These people proved to be reliable above all. Around them I felt safe and taken care of. You make your own luck by surrounding yourself with people that are worth your time.

Bali nanny

Bali nanny

If you are traveling to Bali with children and want a reliable, hands-on, who adores kids, nanny who speaks good English and is very polite and extremely punctual here is the contact information.
I found Chomang on TripAdvisor with excellent rating and she proved to be even better.

  • Gmail: vionabali2408@gmail.com,
  • phone number +6285205556464,
  • facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Professional-Bali-Nanny-168362099980436/?pnref=lhc

Bali nanny

Author

Always improving one's surroundings.

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