Overall: great apartment in a great location, but Freddie (the parrot) can be a big undertaking if you have never taken care of birds.

I stayed at Katarzyna's apartment on Canal St. Martin for about 3 weeks. We also had a special agreement: five of those days, her daughter (Lola) would stay in the 2nd bedroom, and that I also had to take care of Freddie for most of my time there.

I love the Canal St. Martin neighborhood, and this apartment is right on it — steps away from all the restaurants, coffee shops, grocery stores, etc.. For a couple of nights during my stay, the young crowds drinking and hanging out on the canal were noisy late into the night.

Katarzyna and Lola were very communicative over texts and e-mails throughout my stay. Upon my arrival and departure, I picked up and left the keys with the neighbor without any hassle.

I really love the period details in this apartment: the moldings and wooden floors are my favorites. The kitchen and the bathroom are well-equipped and also decent-sized. The apartment looks pretty similar to the pictures, except that there is a huge bird cage in the living room. Having a parrot in the living room can be a problem if you try to have a nice quiet time, listen to music, or watch the TV.

Cleanliness-wise, the rest of the apartment except around the bird cage is fairly clean. There are some fruit flies around in the kitchen and living room because of the exposed perishable bird food. There's a cleaning lady who comes to clean the bird cage twice a week, during which I had to leave the apartment, which was a bit inconvenient, especially the one time where she had to come in at 8:30am.

I was given detailed instructions on how to feed Freddie. It was quite an undertaking for someone who has never taken care of a bird before. Freddie's mood can be up and down, as reflected in the noises he makes. Because I normally go to bed and wake up a bit late, there were times when I was woken up by Freddie. I eventually had to put Freddie's cage in the 2nd bedroom, which helped a bit. By the end of my stay, I was sad to leave the apartment, but I was glad I didn't have to live with Freddie anymore.

In summary, everything about the apartment is great, except that living with and taking care of a parrot isn't as easy as I thought it would be. Unless you're a bird lover, all the positive things about the apartment will be overshadowed by hassle of taking care of a pet parrot.