So let's be clear: this is a good apartment (not "great" but definitely good). Newly renovated, practical, rather comfortable, safe, clean... it ticks many boxes and will do its job very well for your stay in Paris.
What we liked:
- Smooth check-in process with the key in the keybox.
- General cleanliness
- Good bedding
- Good heating throughout the apartment (we stayed in winter)
- Good amenities; the washer-dryer works very well, and so does the towel heating element in the bathroom
- Ability to connect to your own Netflix account
What we liked less (and prevents me from giving it a 4 or 5 star rating):
- This apartment is very vanilla. Yes, it has (most of) what you'll need, but there's nothing on the walls, very few design touches... it was clearly designed to be rented out to make money. It's a house, not a home (and that's fully OK for some guests, mind you).
- The layout of the apartment is such that it wraps itself around the building's staircase. Since it has very poor sound insulation, you hear EVERYTHING that's going on in the lobby, every neighbour going up and down. You also hear the neighbours from apartments across in the courtyard (and some of these neighbours are VERY let's say enthusiastic, with a loud party going on up till 4am one night).
- The kitchen is equipped, yes, but not with everything you need to live there. For instance, if you intend to cook and eat inside: there's no dish tray that can go inside the oven; there's only one kitchen towel; there's no oven gloves; there's no bread knife (in Paris! lol) etc. Feels like someone just went to Ikea to buy a bunch of stuff as an afterthought.
A few minor niggles that the owner can easily remedy:
- See above: get all utensils someone may need to truly use the kitchen.
- Stale milk was left over in the fridge - check that during apartment cleaning please.
- Took us an hour to get the main TV to work: Netflix and Youtube had sound but no picture. In the end, we had to update the TV's Android firmware. Again something you can check from time to time.
- The very kind person who chatted with us through Airbnb for the check-in sent the instructions in an image file that was too small / low res to even read the entrance code properly. A good image/PDF is another quick win to implement.
In conclusion, you will pay hotel prices for this apartment, so it's up to you to decide what you'll value more for your stay: the ability to cook properly and wash your laundry, or a good night's sleep and 24/7 assistance.