The apartment is well-appointed and in a great location. We had everything we needed for a one-month stay (especially in the kitchen, though we ordered in more than we cooked). The bed seemed smaller than our queen at home but was comfortable. The house was very stuffy though, even with the supplied fans, so it would be a better choice for the cooler months. There are also a lot of decorative items throughout the house, which left few workable surfaces (kitchen table, coffee table, dressers) without putting a lot of items in the cubby in the hall, then moving them back when we left. This won’t be an issue for most people with short-term stays, I’m sure.
When the renovations on the property are done, this will be a 5-star rental.
Lish was great at communicating before we arrived and kindly let us move our December booking to June because of Toronto’s COVID lockdown. We did, however, pay her more money to compensate her for the inconvenience.
She offered to move us to her new top-floor unit, but I’m glad we didn’t take her up on this because it wasn’t ready when we arrived.
Construction was still going on, which meant there was a lot of noise, and one morning I woke up to see a workman in front of our bedroom window. I asked Lish if she could give us a heads-up when workmen were going to be on the property but she didn’t, so we had a few more surprise encounters with workmen in the back yard. She was often quite snippy in her responses, which surprised me since she had been so nice before we arrived.
While she ensured us that no one would be on the property evenings and weekends, this was rarely the case.
Normally, this wouldn’t be a huge issue, but we had 2-weeks of government-mandated quarantine, during which we were not supposed to come into contact with people. Having workmen (or Lish) in the back yard meant that we couldn’t go outside, which was especially disappointing on nice weekend days when the backyard was our only destination. Lish did not seem to understand the restrictions of our quarantine and still insisted on showing us around when we arrived, which made us nervous given how big a fine we faced if we were caught violating the COVID regulations.
Note that Lish expects you to thoroughly clean the space and wash all the linens before you leave, which was more than any other AirBnB host has required, but she provided cleaning materials. Because of another long/stay guest’s review, we made sure to leave the place spotless.
Despite our minor issues, we loved the apartment and would recommend it when construction on the upper and lower units are finished.