First the positive things . This place is beautifully renovated and centrally located. Just a short walk from Rue de Mouffetard. The quality of finish and furnishings in the apartment is definitely above average. The view from the window is nice - lush greenery. It is facing the back yard, so nice and quiet too.
The main reason why I am giving it a 4 star review is because the listing indicated two 30m2 rooms, but when we arrived, to our surprise it was only a one 30m2 room divided into two tiny roomlets. The place is tiny. In order to use furniture you need to move things out of the way. For example, in order to open the wardrobe, you need to close the window. In order to open the window you need to move dining chairs out of the way, etc. the kitchen cabinets are very nicely finished in oak veneer, but the countertop space is not the full width and comes out flush with the upper cabinets. So if you forget about their existence, you will bang your head when using the countertop.
Just like in the toilet room, the window that opens is very nice for ventilation, but if you forget about it you will bang your head upon your ascent from the potty.
One dangerous feature of the space economy in this apartment is that the hallway door and toilet room door almost meet at the corner when in the closed position. The toilet door may come ajar open if one does not push it in until the “click” sound is heard. This happened to us, when my daughter was not aware that you had to push the toilet door in until the click noise is heard. I closed the hallway door for the night hoping to get better sound insulation from the neighbors, and then the toilet door came a slight ajar open - just enough to block the hallway door and prevent it from opening. As a result we were locked in at 2 am in a tiny apartment without access to the toilet.
Eventually we were able to get some tiny swing movement by pushing on the hallway door, which swinged the toilet door a few cm further to open, allowing my 11 yr old daughter’s smaller hand to slide above the hallway door opening that was created (just a couple of cm), and to push the toilet door into the open position thus allowing us to escape our prison. It was a pretty humorous situation, and we had a good laugh, but not until we were free again.
The noise insulation doesn’t exist in this place. When the neighbors’ phone rang i was not able to tell if it was my phone ringing or their’s. If you are traveling with a jet leg, be prepared to sit quietly if you wake up in the middle of the night.
The stairway is dangerously steep and narrow! It is just about a meter wide in its narrowest places, and if one is not careful one can easily break their neck on this stairway. We felt that the photograph in the listing concealed the true nature of the stairway.
It was nice to have an elevator, but me and my 11 yr old barely fit into it. Also, no ventilation in the elevator, so better hope it does not break/stop with you in it.
Overall, once we got used to the little boxed in feeling of the apartment, we enjoyed our stay.