According to Aubrey Malone who wrote "Historic Pubs of Dublin", one of the tour books in Karin's welcome literature: "O'Connell Street - one of the widest streets in Europe - was the centre of the city's activity. It has fallen from grace somewhat in the past few decades and has let itself go to an extent, parts of it having become rather tacky. (It is also something of a no-go
area late at night from a crime standpoint)." Karin's place is a few blocks from O'Connell Street, and yes the surrounding area is tacky and rather depressing.

The directions to find the flat are rather uncertain to follow. We found the following easy to follow and straight forward .... you just make one right turn. From the airport, take the 41 bus and get off at Chester. Walk in the direction the bus just travelled. You will pass a pub called WJ which is actually very nice, and a recommendation from Karin. You will also pass the porno shop and shortly thereafter see a pub on the corner. Turn right and you will walk past the park which will be on the left. Just past park on the corner is a rollhouse Number 54, that green door greets you to Karin's place. The Mountjoy Square area
is a very loud and traffic ridden area. People hang out in the streets late into the night, and on the front steps of Karin's place beverage cans and trash were left by neighborhood people who were just hanging out. The apartment is hot with no circulating air. There is no air conditioning or fans to cool down the living space. Karin stated that no cooling is required with 14 foot ceilings, but the facts are the loft is 10 feet up, so you sleep amongst the hottest part of the flat. The airbns photographs are impressive, but the reality is you can not open the largest window which Karin firmly stated to us on arrival is forbidden because of the age of the window. The side windows do open, but we were not comfortable. The list of repairs includes chipping paint in the shower, a gross and tacky shower head, a slow running shower drain which I hate to stand in backup water when showering, a missing light in the shower stall which was pointed out to us, a gas stove that requires matches to lit because the stove needs repairs. Internet connection failed often and does not qualify as an internet offering: One bar, two bars but mostly no internet available. Clearly Karin's opportunity to cash in on the tourism revenue to Dublin is a mainstay but the overselling is rather misleading. The offerings here does not quality for anything above a three star rating. And no you will not have an "exceptional" stay here. The words "patience" and "tolerance" comes to mind during our July stays here.