This was a difficult review to write.
On the one hand: Jacques' house is spacious, spotless, well laid out, perfectly located, and has a lovely backyard in the middle of Montreal and bathrooms worthy of Architectural Digest.
The beautiful pictures in the posting are accurate and enormous care has clearly been put into making sure every detail on the apartment's furnishings are "just so."
But our stay there was difficult...and we are long-time Airbnb customers, who have stayed at many, many houses with many different hosts, and never had anything but a wonderful time.
The trouble started when we were getting on the plane to Montreal on Friday morning and received an email from our host Jacques saying that the front door would be blocked due to painting and sanding when we arrived so that we would need to enter through the alleyway, which - we soon learned - meant both that the other tenants in the building could only exit and enter through the garden outside our back door and that the alarm to the apartment could not be used - a clear safety concern.
I wrote Jacques that I was concerned about the safety and health issues he described and he promptly deducted $187 off the cost of the week, apologized for the inconvenience, and said the inconvenience would only last until Monday morning.
But this was not the case.
On Monday, work continued outside our front door so the house remained unalarmed.
Since the apartment had no air conditioning, it was 90 degrees in Montreal, and we were unable to open the front windows or door due to the continuing work on the front, the apartment was stifling on the first floor and so damp in the basement that the rugs felt moist, the floors were clammy, and we found fairly large millipedes in the sheets.
We still were not concerned, however, since it did not seem that surprising to us that "everything would be back to normal on Monday" might morphed into "by the end of the day on Monday."
But on Tuesday morning at 8am, Jacques' contractors knocked on the front door, asking us to close the inside door and all of the windows since they planned to begin sanding.
We therefore left a message for and sent an email to Jacques, spoke at length to the contractors, and finally negotiated the contractors not starting work until noon.
Jacques meanwhile emailed us to let us know that, as it happened, the work would be continuing since it was not done.
That night, we all felt the sand in our lungs...although it also could have been the heat of the house, and at 814 the next morning (Wednesday), the contractor was back, this time drilling outside our door so that he could sand our bedroom window.

This time, I called Jacques and was able to reach him in person, and told him that this absolutely had to stop. It was not only unfair, but it was cruel, and he needed to call his contractors and make them go away ....until noon at the very least.
This finally did the trick. The workmen were gone by the time we got back from our Wednesday explorations of the city and on Thursday morning at 8am: nothing! blessed silence.
Moreover, the front door was open, we could alarm the house and open the front windows, the cross-ventilation worked perfectly and the house was pleasant inside. In the quiet, we could notice all the lovely touches around the house - including the almost sculptural faucets in the bathrooms and truly beautiful floor tile - and really experience the house as it must have been experienced by all the people who have written 5 star reviews about their stays there.
Sadly, that was our last day of vacation. At 8am on Friday, we left for the airport.
It was a disappointing and upsetting stay. We had so looked forward to/saved for/dreamed about this vacation and it was very unpleasant to have to need to continuously need to self-advocate.
My advice for anyone who wants to stay at Jacques' house is to write in advance and confirm that:
* There should be no reason that the apartment would not be able to be alarmed and therefore secure.
* There should be no reason that the front windows would not be able to be opened and that the cross-ventilation in the house would not be possible.
* There should be no reason to expect loud noises immediately outside the bedroom before [the time you plan to get up or leave the house].
* The basement has been dehumidified.
* There should be no reason for you to need to breathe in any substances such as paint or sand.
If you can come to agreement on all of those items above before your stay, I have no doubt that your stay in Jacques' apartment will be everything we had so hoped ours would be.