Pros: Yama was great with communication – all the way from reserving the apartment to getting directions to checking in. My flight arrived 5 hours late – I let Yama know and it was all no problem. He met me at the apartment as soon as I arrived.
Looks just like the photos.
I was in the apartment for 2 weeks – just one person. It is on the ground floor (so no climbing 5 flights of stairs each day as I’ve done in other Paris apartments) in the courtyard of the building. It is about 300 square feet - so a small studio. The bathroom is great – big tub with a great shower and endless hot water. The kitchen has enough room to do the basics – make coffee – dorm room size refrigerator. A Monoprix supermarket is only 2 blocks away – so daily trips were not a problem. There is a dishwasher but did not use it. There is a combo washer/dryer and used that 3 times – it is a new machine worked great – although it does take about 5 hours for the full wash/dry cycle. The bed is a pull out sofa. Surprisingly it was comfortable – no bar across your back – and the cushions and everything fold and unfold – so it is easy to pull out and put away each day.
The location of the apartment is perfect. Each day I rode the Velibe bikes and there are 3 stations all within one block. 2 Blocks from the Seine – walk out the front door and you are in the middle of all the Marais restaurants, cafes & bakeries. There are literally endless great restaurants right out the door.
The apartment has powered shades that both block out light and some noise. Each day when I returned I would put up the shades and leave my front door open. It allowed me to see the housekeeper for the building almost every day. She was very nice – always asked how I was doing – made sure everything was OK with the apartment. Because I was there for 2 weeks I also met some of the other residents in the building because I kept those shades up and the door open. Everyone was nice – it was nice to sort of feel like a Parisian for just a couple of weeks.
WIFI was perfect. I was working remotely for a few hours each day – and it all worked perfectly for me.
Cons – although it first appears to be a quiet haven in the Courtyard – every single morning at about 5:30 a.m.. someone comes to get the trash containers. They are big plastic bins on wheels for regular trash & recycling. The bins roll over a cobblestone courtyard and it makes A LOT of noise. They get rolled out to the street – there is a lot of noise – that seems to never end. I somewhat successfully drowned out the noise with both a fan and a white noise app on my phone. – but every single morning I was awoken, before dawn by all this activity – that is literally a few feet from your pillow. There is nothing to be done about it. That part kinda sucked.
Could use a drip coffee maker. There is a Nespresso machine – I brought my own pour over contraption and used that instead. Not much counter space – so might be hard to fit it.
Just one other thing is I think the apartment has all kinds of storage and shelving and drawers – BUT – they are almost all full of “stuff”. I didn’t have much – and was able to hang clothes – but I did my best to kinda consolidate all of Yama’s stuff that in certain cabinets and drawers. I’ve experienced this before – he probably has no where else to put this stuff – so it stays in the apartment. It would have felt really spacious if not for all the “stuff”
I would definitely stay again!