John's apartment is extremely well situated. Currently, the street is under renovation, but once it is finished, it is going to enhance the Brussels experience.
The building where John's apartment ( 145 Anspach, #2) is located is old and could use some improvements. (In fact, John shared that he manages 18 apartments, some in another building “even older than this one”.) We are seniors with some mobility issues that made our stay less enjoyable since it is hard for us to use the stairs like when the elevator does not reach the ground floor but refuses to move below the first floor.
The building's elevator is very small and is well, old. There are instructions in English about what to do if the elevator gets stuck. There must be a reason why instructions are posted there on a metal plaque and the reason is that the elevator gets stuck. It happened to us and for ten very uncomfortable and anxious minutes we were stuck in a very, very small elevator. It seems that the red emergency button has been used so much that it did not click right away.
From then on we used the stairs, slowly, but we had the eventual problem of 3 valises. I called John to help us figure out how to bring the valises down from the second floor. John had earlier offered to help us but when we called him on it, he could not match our schedule and finally after asking him if there is some other solution (not having heard one from him) he managed to arrange for one of his tenants to assist us.
The apartment was clean but not well taken care of. One of the doors of the kitchen cabinets fell off when my wife tried to open it. The toilet seat wobbles and the cover falls down at inappropriate times. Even though John sent his maintenance man to deal with these items and we approved of him entering our apartment because John said he would also be in the building, John never checked with the maintenance man to learn that nothing had been dealt with. There were no cleaning supplies in the kitchen and no trash bags, therefore our trash, organic since we cook breakfast and inorganic, accumulated. Since we stayed 10 days we would not have minded taking the trash out but John’s instructions say not to worry that his maintenance staff will deal with it. Really?
John is a very good correspondent and was available on the phone to discuss all our problems. The apartment needs a little tender care and it is lovely. But if you have mobility issues, make sure that you tell John so that he may be able to place you in a ground floor apartment. We do not recommend that elevator until it is changed or fixed. Of course, all elevators can get stuck but this one is very small and claustrophobic.