This was one of the worst travel experiences, and the worst hosts, I've ever had to deal with.

First, I'll explain the apartment issues, then my experience with the horrible host.

1. There's an unfixable problem with the overall plumbing in the (very old) building and, consequently, a strong sewage smell comes up through the sinks about every two hours. It's really gross.
2. The apartment is much smaller than it looks in photos. The windows look directly into another apartment that always has their drapes open, so there's no privacy at all (the trick photos made it look like it sees overtop of a roof, but that's because they took the photos from the floor instead of standing).
3. The narrow spiral stairs are super super trecherous, slippery (just shiny metal, no grips) and tough to navigate. Definitely not for anyone with a glass of wine in them, and they'd be especially dangerous for anyone young or old.
4. The clothes washing machine (there's no dryer) is communal, down the hall.

Now, for our stay:
When we arrived, there was extremely loud thumping noises every hour or so (including throughout the night). And I mean LOUD! Needless to say we got no sleep. We told Philippe and he responded by entering without notifying us first ("We made observation today that there Is No special noise"). So we insisted that there is an issue and he sent his wife to check. She heard it (it scared her too!) and she turned off the water heater, which stopped the noise (and the hot water). That night two things happened: 1) the neighbor's apartment flooded and we had to deal with an upset neighbor, and 2) Philippe sent us a message saying: "I do not understand how They could turn off the unit and U couldn't knowing They do not have any expérience In repair.", also rudely stating: "any damage if any will be your responsability. Finally U should understand that U are not in an hotel setting. This model is a collaborative model." (insinuating that he was going to try to steal our deposit by blaming the piping issue on us, somehow, even though we didn't touch anything, and that we should be partially responsible for helping to fix his apartment issues), and "I càn not foresee when it could be repaired."

So we didn't have any hot water (and then no water at all) for our whole 7-night stay (except for the first and last day), and Philippe told US to rearrange our schedule to deal with the plumber and water heater repair people ourselves (so we had to rearrange our schedule for five days in a row.) He gave us access to bathroom inside a tiny windowless room down the hall (which was under construction) to shower, but we couldn't clean dishes.

After all this, Philippe continued to be rude (despite our painfully polite responses) and refused to give us any amount of discount on our stay. Beyond awful.