Host - We were a group of 7 people coming into Florence late at night. We had informed the the host of our late check at the time of booking, since our train was reaching Florence around 10PM. Artan also offered to send a shuttle to pick us up at the station, which was a paid service that we were not informed of before. The apartment was managed by one of the host's associates, Gentiana. She made sure to let us know that she was doing us a favor by staying up late to check us in. Once the check in formalities were completed and when she asked us if we had paid for the shuttle, we politely let her know that we weren't aware that it was a paid service and were not sure what the charges were. We asked her to call and check with Artan, to which she said "Why would anyone stay up so late, to provide a service for free?". In a previous Airbnb we booked, we had a free shuttle to the nearby station, so I felt it was not too unbecoming of us to assume this may be a complimentary service. Upon calling Artan, her first words were, "There seems to be a problem here", to which we had to explain to her that there was no problem, and we just wanted to check what was going on, since it was the first we had heard of this. We ended up having to pay 30 Euros for the shuttle. All in all, Gentiana's behavior was very disturbing and unwelcoming.
Location - The apartment is located very conveniently, close to the Florence S. Maria Novella station. It roughly takes about 5 minutes to walk to the station. There are bars very close to the apartment, and it is a short walk from most major attractions in the city.
Apartment - The apartment itself was spacious and easily accommodated our group of 7. However few essential amenities were missing when we checked in, such as dry towels. Few towels were left hanging on a clothes rack in the balcony and were still wet. When we called Gentiana to check if those towels could be used, she again had a condescending reply implying everything in the apartment was obviously clean and those towels were washed. The dryer in the apartment was not very effective to get them dried as well. We ended up having to use wet towels anyway. The bathrooms were clean and spacious, and hot water was available throughout the day.
Overall - Florence is a great city, and we were able to see most of it thanks to the ideal location of this apartment. However, Gentiana's unwelcoming attitude and rude behavior did leave an unpleasant taste.