Great apartment in a great part of Paris. However, do not stay here unless you love the sights and sounds of drunken homeless people and their dogs beneath your windows.

We were unpleasantly surprised by the noisy drunks who sat almost directly under the apartment windows twelve hours a day, six days a week. They often got into loud fights with each other and, sometimes, with passersby. One pursued me yelling at me one day as I returned from the bakery. In addition, they had dogs that barked at passersby and other dogs, and contributed to the disturbance. We know that they disturbed many other people living in the neighborhood as they would signal us from their windows that we should join them in calling the police.

We contacted our host about the problem. When we told her that we probably would not have rented from her if she had been forthcoming about this issue, she said that she had never seen this problem while living there. This could not have been true. This was clearly an ensconced group of people; the same people came every single day we were there, from day one.

She said none of her other guests had complained. I cannot account for that, but felt her statement was made as a means to challenge "our over-sensitivity". I sent her photos of the crowds of drunks. To her credit, she said she did come out and confirmed that she had seen the situation and would make a report to the police. Whether the police came out or not (we never saw any), the problem continued throughout our monthlong stay.

I wrote her again at 10 one night, since there yelling outside at that moment. She responded, "When you planned your trip to Paris, you have chosen to come in the center of Paris, which ... is assorted with a life and a circulation of people appropriate to each center of town in Europe, with its diversity, including street-vendors and homeless people... I would recommend if you are coming again that you select a location further away from the center of Paris but more quite such as Neuilly or 16 em arrondissement, or even an appartement with no street view."

At the beginning of our communications about the situation, she offered to refund us one night's rent when we left. She never did. I wrote her when we returned to the states and asked her about this, and she never even responded.

Unless you want to deal with similar problems, don't rent this place. Heed this "host's" own words and rent some where else.