While the hosts were not able to meet us as they were away, we were greeted by their friend who was extremely helpful. She met us 2 hours before the check in time as our flight landed in early in the morning. We were particularly grateful to her because we left something in the apartment when we checked out and she had to come all the way to let us back in.
The apartment itself was bit disappointing. It seemed like lots of people had stayed there this summer and was in a need of a good clean. For instance there were cobwebs around the apartment and little things like the drawers and window sills weren't clean. We felt it was too highly priced for what it had to offer. There seemed to be an issue with the pipes in the bathroom because there was a strange smell during our entire stay. The mattress was quite uncomfortable as well. Lastly, there are no blinds, just very light cotton curtains which didn't cover the windows fully. Being on the ground floor we felt that this did not offer a lot of privacy.
However, we did enjoy having the garden and being so close to public transport. Also we appreciated that there was a fan because the weekend we spent in Berlin was super hot!