Charming place, well decorated and cozy!
There’s a few things I feel Airbnb-ers should know before staying here:
1. Cleanliness -
My partner and I are generally anxious people when it comes to cleanliness in Airbnbs, especially when it comes to bedsheets and bed bugs. I’ll be honest, we weren’t too impressed with the state of the bed and couch when we arrived. The bed had random hairs on it, on the pillowcases, bottom sheets etc… (I did ask, for bedsheets that were reportedly cleaned right before our arrival I find it a bit weird but…whatever)
Our problem came from the fact that the under mattress sheet had what seemed like.. insect sheddings. Some stains here and there as well as many weird brown spots. We wrote to the host and she immediately suggested that she change the sheets, give us new ones etc…, which we were very grateful for. The sheets ended up being replaced and after thorough inspection, no bedbugs were found anywhere. The bedding wasn’t changed, just turned upside down.
Aside from the bed, the rest of the Airbnb was pretty clean, the dishes provided were nice, I did not see anything else suspicious during the rest of the stay there.
2. Communication -
When booking, I was told that instructions would be sent the night before the trip. For many reasons, I understand why that would be done, but it still makes me nervous as I like to be prepared and sleep easy knowing there is nothing else to worry about. The night before I am finally sent the instructions and notice that we were placed in another loft. I ask the host about it and as it turns out there was water damage in the loft we booked and we were ‘upgraded’ to another room. The only complaint in communication with the host I have here is the fact that had I not asked/noticed the discrepancy, I would not have been told that our booking had changed. I do not think it is ok for the booking to be changed without our consent, and be told only the night before. Things happen and it was too late to book anything else, so we ended up staying there.
3. The neighbourhood -
Location is always important when booking an Airbnb, in my opinion. When we found this listing, we thought the pictures were lovely (the loft we wanted even had a cute painting of bunnies!), everything was framed really well. In reality (and outside of the host’s control, of course) there was construction all around the listing which made it very hard to get to. There were anti semitic graffiti on the side of the building (again, not exactly within the host’s control, but it shows the type of people roaming the neighbourhood). I can say that if you’re a fan of being woken up randomly by cars speeding well past the safety limit, and constant screaming every 5 minutes, then this is the place for you. Throughout our stay, we were woken up by random people outside yelling and screaming at each other (and seeing how we had the loft overlooking 2 streets, it was VERY hard to block out sounds and noises, even with the windows and shutters closed). If I were travelling/staying alone in the Airbnb, I would NOT feel safe walking anywhere from there. Aside from this, the Airbnb was very close to a huge shopping/tourist street where we spent most of our time. It takes an elevator ride/stairs to get up to a very steep hill which leads you to said street, but it is worth it. We were very grateful to be next to such wonderful shops and I definitely recommend, if you don’t mind my previous points, to stay here if you want to shop around a lot.
All in all, the lofts were pretty charming, location was not bad, but cleanliness could be improved. If you stay here, I recommend you go up to the elevator café up the street (the have delicious sandwiches and some board games too)!