This apartment is very well situated in the Bibliothèque nationale de France neighborhood of Paris left bank. Unfortunately Alain seems unfamiliar with how AirBnB works.
Although a cleaning fee is charged, the place was not clean. A layer of dust was coating the floors and surfaces (mirrors and tables) were smudged. I signaled the issue to Alain and Laura but their solution was to offer a cleaning service a few days later—in the mean time I had cleaned it myself.
The shower has a very slow drain which causes the shower to fill up within less than a minute of running water.
I had to put sheets and duvet cover on the bed and cover.
The day before checkout Alain wrote me through the application to tell me that at checkout, his cohost Laura would come get the keys and make sure that I had washed, dried and ironed all the linens that I used. There is a washer, but no dryer on the premises: to fulfill this demand, I would have had to get up at 6 am or earlier on a day where I would spend 15 hours traveling… None of these expectations or demands were communicated in the House rules. I contacted AirBnB and they advised me not to do it and they followed up with Alain to get the cleaning fees reimbursed.
Upon arrival, there was no Wi-Fi password to be found. It took an hour to get it sorted out.
In short, after a long trans-Atlantic journey, where I just wanted to chill and take a nap, this was not the experience I was looking for. Instead, I had to sort the Wi-Fi, clean the apartment, and make up the bed.
I have stayed in 17 AirBnB’s in multiple countries and different continents in recent years, including several stays in Paris. This has been my only bad experience using the app so far, so I will keep booking with AirBnB, just not anywhere that Alain is the host.