I stayed at Pierre's studio for four months during the pandemic (Feb to June 2021). Because I stayed there for so long, I spotted several good and bad details about the studio that I would like to share with the community. I would like to point out that the host is a very nice person, he always helped when I asked him for it. I sometimes did not share the negative point that I write below with him because I did not think it was so important for me, but maybe it is important for somebody else, so I'd like to share them too.
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POSITIVE POINTS:
I arrived and had to quarantine for 2 weeks, the check in was contactless, the ring bell was not working but Pierre bought a bell buzzer for me when I asked. He was always very quick to answer my messages.
The studio is located in an amazing area, I am so happy I stayed there, the area feels very safe, the streets are very beautiful and there are so many restaurants and shops around (also the Jean Talon market is super nice!). The subway stop is literally 3 minutes away from the studio (by walk), which makes it super easy to move around in the city.
The studio is well equipped and you do not really need to buy anything. The host provides with toiler paper (only at the beginning of the stay), soap and towels. There is on-site laundry, which is cool, although one needs $1.5 (1 coin of $1 and 2 coins of 25 cents) for the washing machine and $1.5 for the dryer. It was always very hard to get the exact $3, since nobody uses cash anymore, I had to withdraw money just for than and then shop to get loose change.
The price is good as compared to other Airbnb studios. This was affordable for me, there were many expensive apartments at the platform (even during the pandemic, when only people that came to work could move to Canada, wow!). Of course, as compared to subleases of friends of mine, it is far better to get a sublease in Montreal than to rent any Airbnb apartment. If you are staying for very long, I'd consider a sublease.
The temperature was overall very good at the apartment. In winter, it was a little bit colder by the window (even though the heating was on, it might be possible that the isolation is not great). However, in summer, the temperature is great, it can be super hot outside and the studio is always at a nice temperature.
At some point I noticed some spots on the wall. I was concerned about them, I let Pierre know, he came right away to check. He painted that part of the wall. He was very nice.
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NEGATIVE POINTS:
First of all, this is a very important thing that is not said (as least, I did not see it or did not pay attention to it) in the studio information: the studio is on the ground floor, the window is at the road level, which means that there is very scarce natural light at the apartment. The light bulbs in the apartment are not super powerful so the lighting is dim almost all the time.
To my opinion, the studio needs to be renewed and some things have to be thoroughly cleaned. These are things that one notices when one has spent a lot of time at the studio. Apparently, the apartment is clean. Some stuff I noticed, as an example:
- the linen has been used very times. It was clean but it started to show old. Also, there is just one bedding set, which makes it hard to wash it.
- there is a table whose table leg is a bit unstable, I had to be careful since I was afraid it broke down.
- the extractor hood needed to be thoroughly cleaned. I noticed this on a random day when I looked from below it, you do not see it from its front. It was very dirty.
- same with the bathtub curtain. At the beginning, I noticed some black spots on it. I thought it was clean anyways, they could by humidity spots that could not be removed anymore. After some time, I started to become more aware of those spots, I finally decided to wash the curtain. It was made out of plastic (or a similar material), so I did not feel safe to wash it in the washing machine. I did it by hand (in the bathtub). I had to wash it twice, the water turned brownish when I put the curtain in.
I think that the apartment is usually cleaned before a guest arrives, but I do not think that they have put the time to clean every spot of the house very well, that is the reason why the curtains or the extractor hood were not the cleanest (since this is something that you do not clean everyday, they may have forgotten). However, I think it is worth that the host pays attention to these details too.
The neighbors are not very nice. On the same floor, there was one guy who would do very weird noises all the time (kind of coughing in a weird manner) and who would not even say hi. The other neighbor complained several times to me when I was videocalling my friends because she said I was loud and "she could not sleep". It was always after 11 am and before 6 pm, I was using headphones all the time and I was not that loud. I think this is a problem of the apartment isolation against sounds, but the neighbor preferred to complain to me. On the first floor, the person above my apartment decided to work out for 3 weeks at 10-11 pm when I was trying to sleep. I never complaint about it though.
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