I live in New York City and have traveled to Paris on dozens of occasions and I have rented various apartments in Paris through Airbnb and I have also stayed in many different hotels there, so I am quite familiar with the market. When I read the reviews for this particular apartment, I was encouraged to try it because the reviews were generally positive, if limited in number, so I signed up for 10 days.
I hate to post negative reviews on airbnb--in fact I have never done so until now. Ordinarily I would simply not post anything if I didn't have something positive to say. But in this case I feel the need to comment as a public service. Below I list the issues in order of importance to me.
1. The description of the apartment is inaccurate in very material ways. The apartment is described as looking out onto a courtyard and therefore has the benefit of being quiet. The apartment does not look out onto a courtyard. The few windows of the apartment look into small concrete/stucco airshafts which are completely enclosed and allow no access to the ground. Therefore, when you look out the windows you are looking at a concrete enclosure just a few feet from the window that goes up several stories to the roof and when you look down, just a few feet below the window, the concrete shaft is completely enclosed so that there is no visible access or escape access to the ground. The effect is that the apartment gets no natural light-- you cannot tell if its sunny or raining when you look out the windows, and you can hardly tell whether it is day or night. The effect is extremely claustrophobic and felt to us as though we were staying in an apartment that has no windows at all. The other aspect of this situation that got into our heads is that when you are inside the apartment, the only access to the outdoors is through the small front door down a narrow set of stairs and hallway to the street. If there were ever a fire in the front stairwell or hallway, there would be no way out of the apartment, which strikes me as extraordinarily unsafe. This is the primary reason we left the apartment early and moved into a hotel for the remainder of our stay in Paris, duplicative costs notwithstanding. The absence of any real meaningful window view to the outside does make the apartment quiet, as stated the the owners description. It is quiet--like a tomb.
2. The front door has an antiquated lock that will not open if a key is left in the lock on the inside, and it is only possible to lock the door when you're inside by putting the key in the lock and turning it. No one told us this when we checked in and although there are instructions about this on the inside of the door, you don't naturally read those. Since you get 2 sets of keys when you move in I found it to be quite natural to leave one of the keys in the inside lock when I left and take the other with me, which I did, and I was immediately locked out, requiring a locksmith and US$80 to fix. When the locksmith came, he told me "everybody does this". The owner did agree to split this cost with me so it only cost me $40 but thus isn't something anyone should have to deal with when they first arrive in Paris from abroad. Not a huge issue, but a pain that could have been avoided if we had been properly informed, or even better, the owner should get a new lock that doesn't have this odd quirk.
2. When we checked in, we asked the person if we could please arrange for cleaning once or twice while we were there and she said she would set it up. No one ever came to clean which was disappointing but fairly minor compared to number 1.
You should consider renting this place only if you are not bothered by the absence of natural light and limited egress access.