Unfortunately, our stay in Mickael's place was as bad as it could be, and his attitude towards addressing our concerns only made it worse. Simply put, this listing should be taken off Airbnb, and a lawsuit should be filed!
1. The place itself is in a location which is in a loud, earth-shattering, noisy construction zone, on a dirty, unhygienic street (you can see cockroaches on the street in the morning). One entrance to the street is completely blocked, and nobody informed us about it. After picking up the keys in a locker from a pub (nobody met us to give us the keys), we were expecting a 8 - 10 minute walk to the apartment as per the instructions. However, because of the blocked street, we had to make a detour, which added another 15 minutes. Highly inconvenient, especially with kids and luggage in tow! An alert manager / host should have known about this blockage and given us heads-up. When we brought this to Mickael's attention, he just said he did not know!
2. The place, on the 2nd floor (there are no lifts / elevators), is in a building with dusty carpets, which looked like they hadn't been vacuumed in a long time. As a result, we got dust allergies and had to resort to taking Zyretc (anti-allergic pills) to control them.
3. One of the (many) frustrating things was attempting to unlock the door of the apartment. Mickael had mentioned that the door was tricky to unlock but that was clearly an understatement! We all have our experiences with tricky locks but this was something else! This is a door that is near impossible to unlock. At one point, we had to struggle with it for over half an hour. When we told Mickael about it, all we got was "sorry". Most frustrating!
4. The apartment itself lacked any air circulation. The place was not advertised with air-com, which is fine. But this was in the middle of the heatwave in Paris (late June 2019), and knowing that, we had requested Mickael if he could at least arrange for a standing fan. He clearly did not want to do that. Opening the windows was a non-option because of the sounds and noises from the pubs late night; heavy construction sounds early mornings; and the noises from the garbage removal trucks early morning! As a result, we spend 2 sleepless nights in his place, because of the sweltering heat and/or the noise factor. I seriously can't understand how a host can be this cheap -- buying a 20 - 30 euro fan could have easily solved this problem but Mickael refused to budge, simply offering yet another "sorry".
5. The apartment lacked the most basic amenities -- there was not even toilet paper in the tiny bathroom. We had to go out and purchase our own TP! And oh, each time we took a shower, the bathroom got flooded. When we brought this up to with Mickael, he conveniently blamed the cleaning crew, and there was no attempt to fix the problem: simply a message saying that we should buy our own toilet paper and he would reimburse us for that. We found this highly insulting -- as if we would want a refund of 2 to 3 euros! This is clearly a host who does not know how to deal / manage a situation, and simply does not care.
6. The kitchen lacked even the most basic amenities -- no salt, sugar, coffee etc. When we brought this up with Mickael, all we got was yet another "sorry"!
All in all, a most frustrating stay, in an awful place that should be de-listed from Airbnb right away, compounded by an arrogant, uncaring, and cheap attitude of the host. Given all these problems, when we asked for a refund, Mickael, after throwing up yet another "sorry", offered to refund 28 euros (we paid US$280/night for this sorry place). We refused his 28 euro refund. We will be taking this up with Airbnb for further action. It's shocking that no quality controls have been applied to this place or the host.
Seriously folks, this is a complete scam operation. You'd be much better off living and spending your money anywhere else. Don't fall for it!