This airbnb…
I had high hopes for. I will get straight to the point.
Pros:
- unbeatable location. You are a pleasant walk away from the Eiffel Tower, and the Metro is so close.
- many amazing restaurants in the area.
- a Carrefour grocery shop is also a short walking distance.
- the place is cutely designed.
- checkin is easy.
- upon request, the host let us store our luggage until we were ready to check in to our next airbnb (note that this depends on availability).
Cons:
- there are stairs that you’d need to take going down to reach the bedroom and the bathroom, so just be aware. A little bit of a safety hazard for the elderly, disabled, or plain clumsy.
- there are also some safety hazards in the bathroom — a weird small step to get to the sink (tripped on this a few times), the bathroom floor could be very slippery when wet and there is nothing to hold onto.
- the toilet is a semi crusher. this can get a bit loud but nothing intolerable. it was the small hole on the floor in front of the toilet that was bothersome as it was producing a sewer system smell that we tried to cover up with used towels.
- the property has no central conditioning and lists portable fans. fyi, if you book the property and need the fans, request them ahead of time. we stayed here in May when it could get hot and cold in Paris within the same day (or just a necessity for those who get warm easily) so we needed the fans. we needed to request these, and the host couldn’t drop them off until the next day. we needed to retrieve the fans in the basement of the building where the host dropped off the fans.
- this was what caused me to give this airbnb a lower rating than what i normally would give: the dysfunctional/broken washing machine. our clothes got stuck in this washer for over 24 hours because the washer’s door was not opening. we notified the host promptly and remained in contact with her about this complaint. we followed all her prompts/instructions on how to open the door properly but all attempts were unsuccessful. ultimately, we had to leave the key in the keybox and our belongings in the airbnb while going on about our travel plans (which by the way were altered/postponed because of the washer issue) so the repairman can fix the washer. the host told us that the washer has been fixed. we came home to a STILL broken washer and a washer door that STILL was not opening. this time around, there were scratches around the washer door which made us think that the repairman might have used a tool to force the door open. fortunately, my father found a YouTube tutorial and used a Starbucks gift card to slide through the washer door, which thankfully worked!!! this happened at around 2am, which is perfect because we needed to check out at 11am.
i requested a partial refund from the host because of all the hassle and stress that the above situation caused us. instead of sincere apologies, i was sent messages of how it is unfair to request money back and that if anything, we probably destroyed the washing machine. it was already bad enough that the washer wasn’t working and caused us unnecessary worry and stress during our vacation, but even worse when we were accused of something we didn’t do.
i really was looking forward to staying in this airbnb because of the attractiveness of the photos and the seemingly good ratings, but we unfortunately had a pretty poor experience.