With my girlfriend having lived in Paris during undergraduate University, and visiting since she was a baby as both her mother and her grandmother also lived in Paris during undergraduate university, we spend typically a couple months per year in Paris. We have seen all sorts of lodging in Paris and this would not be one that we would normally choose under any circumstances, primarily due to location. We are hosts of over a decade on Airbnb for some of our properties we own and have renovated, both have professional careers (I still work in finance, my girlfriend was a lawyer in San Francisco and nyc, now does property investment), and we have a hobby IG with which we collaborate with luxury hotels. Prior to our IG and in between collaborations, we stay at countless hotels and Airbnbs on our own, and have likely stayed at over 50 airbnbs in paris over the years alone (good to bad and everything in between). In all of our times in Paris (multiple every year), we have never seen it so busy, with so many Americans finally traveling again (we were obviously here both last year and 2020 as usual, and it was not quiet, but a fraction of the Americans it is now selling out all of the hotels). We came for a collaboration with the St. James (honestly shocked in hindsight that they would have a such a busy time, around Bastille Day), but with the weather being spectacular wanted to stay longer. Needless to say, with even the worst hotels in the worst areas sold out and typically deciding to stay the same day to where it is so last minute that there was nothing available and budget hotels such as the Best Western that are typically €99 a night (per their signs outside) were over €500 per night (or sold out altogether), so we ended up staying in a couple places we never would have chosen to or normally done, this being one of them.
There are only a few areas in Paris that we choose not to ever spend any time, this being one of them. The Metro 6 line runs above ground along this busy road, The area is filled with flooring shops, car dealerships, and primarily 1960s to 1980s buildings similar to Copacabana - it is very much like the area in Brooklyn where you find Costco, with the subway running above ground over there as well. The only time we come through this area is on the metro to take a picture at bir hakeim every few (or even more) years (and even looking out the window on the metro as we pass through here, we always say how rough it looks and how we would never want to be down there; similar to Gare du Nord Barbes -Rochechouart, but we are over there much more often since there are areas of the 18th that we like and used to frequent somewhat often). There are areas of the 15th that are nice, but to get to those from here, you essentially must walk about ten minutes, which isn’t far per se, but the walk from here to anywhere nicer is extremely unpleasant (we live between downtown Manhattan and London but visit every continent on earth but Antarctica by April or May every year, spending several months per year in Cape Town, Rio de Janeiro, so it is not a matter of feeling in danger; I am from New Orleans which is incredibly dangerous, just that it is not nice to look at or walk around in; I imagine if someone had never been to Paris and they stayed over here and did not leave the area, they would literally have a completely different view of Paris than it actually is in virtually any arrondissement of Paris).
We happened to switch (same day again) on the hottest day of the year and in memory in Paris, 106 Fahrenheit/42C, and as this is a seventh floor apartment, it was obviously quite hot (our townhouse in London obviously does not have Aircon, however it is not on the seventh floor in the direct sunlight, nor is London usually close to the temperatures of Paris). We had asked her about a noon check out since as hosts even with same-day turns we always offer noon check out, we work on NYC hours so go to bed around six or 7 AM, so wake around noon, and all hotels in Paris have a noon check out, when she insisted on 11 (Bear in mind again that literally everything was booked, and this sitting empty same day, so getting her a last-minute booking that otherwise would have sat empty).
She also told us immediately after we had booked that she is busy working and did not have time to talk to us anymore (we had only asked about a late check out, not 50 random questions). We stated that we work over 100 hour weeks (as is normal in many industries in NYC, not so in Paris, London, or Europe), and also have other jobs such as our IG and hosting on airbnb and we cannot imagine telling someone that, in fact while sitting at a café waiting for her check-in time while messaging her and being told she was too busy to speak to us, we had literally just been messaging guests of our own offering them a noon check out that day, without them even requesting it.
She did have someone bring us a fan when we mentioned it being extreme heat, so that was a bit helpful, but she also told us right after we checked in that she was going to be out of contact and leaving service in the mountains, so had there been any other issues, we would have been in trouble (our guests get angry if we don’t respond immediately no matter what time zone we are on; we have guests check in at