I struggled a lot with how to rate this apartment because it has both good and bad points. If I could give partial stars, I would have awarded it 3.5 out of 5 stars because I think that would be the most accurate rating for our overall experience. I ultimately rounded down to three because I think it is more accurate than four stars. Hopefully by the time you read this some of the issues we had will be fixed.
The apartment we were given was on the fifth floor and is not the one in the pictures for this Airbnb listing. If you see a wooden wall behind the sofa, a kitchen that is oriented on the right, or a large window in the main bedroom instead of a port window, then you are seeing pictures for what I assume is a different apartment within the same building but is not the one on the fifth floor, which is feasible because the same company owns and rents out all of the apartments in the building. The fifth floor apartment is similar, but it is not the same and not as nice.
I don’t think there is any one listing that is right or best for anyone, as people are looking for different things and have different priorities. As such, I will try to give as fair and balanced of a rundown of this apartment as possible.
Here are the pros for this listing:
-The location is excellent. If you want to be centrally located right in the heart of Brussels, this is hard to beat. -There is an elevator so walking up the spiral staircase to the fifth unit is optional.
-Check in and check out are very easy.
-The view from the common room windows is really beautiful.
-We really liked the shower and appreciated that the toilet was in a separate room from the shower. It made the logistics of four people for one bathroom significantly easier. There are sinks in the shower room and the toilet room, so the unit has three sinks total, including the one in the kitchen.
-The windows provide good ventilation.
-There are individually controlled a/c units in the bedrooms and common room, if outside air isn’t adequate ventilation.
-It was nicely cleaned.
Here are the cons:
-As mentioned, the pictures currently listed as of the time of this review are not accurate to the apartment on the fifth floor, and what we got isn’t as nice. It’s an attic unit.
-The floorboards are so squeaky and creaky that we found it impossible to move up and down the hallway without it waking every one up. This was inconvenient since we were jet lagged and some of us had trouble sleeping through the night. It meant we couldn’t get up and go to the common room to do other things without making a very significant amount of noise. It was also an issue for going to the toilet in the night. Everyone woke up when someone walked through. The floors are that loud. We experimented with the boards to see if we could figure out a way to dodge the creakiest ones but never were able to come up with a satisfactorily quiet path.
-The kitchen is serviceable but very barebones. There are four plates, four cups, four forks, etc. Counting the pull-out sofa, this could potentially sleep as many as six, so four was potentially not a 1:1 of people to dishes. It is not a kitchen for making much of anything beyond coffee/tea. We prefer to cook breakfast in and were able to make do with what we had—a skillet, a spatula, a cutting board, two knives—but only because we kept breakfast very simple.
-The building smelled like rotting garbage inside from the bottom floor landing, up the stairs, all the way to the fifth floor. It was enough to make us almost gag at times. We thought the problem was that maybe it was trash day when we got there, as there were some bags of trash on the landing of one of the units on a middle floor. But we stayed three days and the smell never really improved even after the bags were long gone.
-The stairwell is pitch dark in places and had no discernible way to turn on lights. I know they could be lit because occasionally they were, but we were not able to figure out how to make them come on and had to use our cell phone flashlights in order to not trip and fall, as they are narrow, winding, and steep. The workaround was taking the elevator, which we did the majority of the time. But the elevator is tiny, slow, and is limited to three people, so one of the four of us usually ended up walking up the stairs while the other three rode. The elevator had the benefit of smelling less bad (but still not neutral or good).
-Communication was spotty. The company made sure to contact me with the apartment and check in directions with plenty of time. That was good. I wrote with a check out question to clarify about our duties with cleaning so I could make sure to do it correctly, and I never did get a response. It was understandable that they didn’t respond immediately because I wrote late the night before, but even twelve hours later I still hadn’t gotten an answer. Hopefully I did it right and, if not, it didn’t cause too many problems.
This rental is not bad and might fit a person’s needs just fine, especially if they want a place that is very well located, they are sound sleepers, and they plan to eat most of their meals out. For us, we don’t regret our stay but would probably look for something else if we were to return since we are so noise sensitive and like to prepare some meals at home.