Positives:
Location is great, walking distance to all the historic sights in Florence.
We were 2 families traveling together, and the 4 bedrooms provided ample space.
We could drop off our bags early. There is a garden/patio in the back, but it was not really usable for us because of mosquitoes, this may be a positive in another season.
Negatives:
-Access to the apartment is through an office. The office has a small room on one end, which is where the host seems to stay when the house is occupied. It was an awkward access to the apartment at best.
-The apartment is very cluttered, and does not really look like shown in the pictures, especially the downstairs area.
-There are signs INSIDE the apartment that it is under video surveillance, this made us all a little uneasy.
-The biggest negative was our experience with Rita. We had an issue with the washer door getting stuck while running a load of laundry. We contacted Rita to help, and did not force the door open, and were patient since she said she was not in town at that point. She came in later to try it herself with no success. At that point, she started screaming at us that we would be responsible for fixing the washer. The rant went on for a good 10 mins, while we all listened in stunned silence. We were truly shell shocked with the way she was behaving. She actually scared our young kids with her behavior. After she left, we were all sitting down trying to figure out what we should do, when she proceeded to use her key to reenter the apartment, *without* knocking, and shouted at us again claiming we were responsible for the issue. We had no clothes to use for the rest of our trip, but were actually afraid of what she would do to the rest of our stuff the next day. We were scared enough by her outrageously rude and overblown response to call AirBnB customer service as soon as she left. After they intervened, she contacted us and told us she would try to have someone to look at the washer the next day, which she did end up doing. But, our overall experience with her was so nightmarish that it tainted our whole stay in Florence. The washer door getting stuck could have happened to anyone, at any time, and we did not blame her for it, but what followed was inexcusable.
From seeing her responses to prior negative reviews, we know she will try to refute our feedback and put the blame back on us. Anyone seeing her response to this review should keep that in mind.