This was our first booking on Airbnb. We stayed for 10 nights.

Communication with Ludovic before and after booking was good. We were met at the apartment by his assistant, who offered to carry our luggage up to this 5th floor apartment (we declined).

This small (but typical for the neighborhood) apartment was accurately pictured in the photos. Not pictured in the photos is the tiny toilet/water closet. We’re talking hard-to-turn-around tiny. One of the two toilet seat bolts was missing, making the seat slide around on and partially off of the toilet when sitting.

As others have commented, you absolutely could not ask for a more centrally located apartment in the Marais. It is close to countless excellent restaurants/cafes/bakeries/grocers/etc. It is quite close to one Metro station, and reasonably close to several others. There are several parks and museums in the area. All of this is within easy, flat walking distance.

Overall the apartment was clean. The shower stall tile had obviously been cleaned prior to our arrival, but some of the shower tile grout needs to be immediately scrubbed. Parts of the grout have brown/black dirt/mold that should be obviously noticeable to Ludovic’s managers and cleaning crew upon visual inspection. We did not call to complain because we didn’t want to worry about sticking around for a cleaning crew to arrive.

Another reviewer commented about the filthy common stairway carpet leading to the apartment (not under Ludovic’s control).

There is a hanging sliding door on the doorway to the bedroom. This door was not functional at the time of our visit and would not slide shut. This was not a problem for us, but should be fixed.

The kitchen had a clean refrigerator, a clean oven/stove, and a reasonable amount of clean dishware and utensils. The only thing we missed was not having a small microwave available for heating up bakery goods and restaurant leftovers. There was a small dishwasher we did not use, as we bought some dish soap and washed things by hand in the sink. There was a working coffeemaker with filters. We used the washing machine, which worked well. There was no dryer, but there was a folding metal clothes hanger for drying along with some clothespins. There was also an iron and ironing board which we didn’t use.

There are two popular restaurants/bars at street level that are open late. One, directly below this apartment, is very popular with the young late night crowd. Their patrons wait/eat outside, smoke incessantly and talk very loudly until a bit after midnight most nights. At times you can smell their smoke in the apartment. We would have preferred to sleep with the windows open, but did not because of the noise and smell.

Would we rent this apartment or another apartment from Ludovic again? Yes. The maintenance issues I’ve raised should be immediately corrected, but they really did not detract from our enjoyment of the apartment.