This is a beautiful apartment in a perfect location but sadly, our stay was really negatively impacted by our interactions with Tom.
The check in was smooth (Tom's wife, Silvia, met us at the nearby vaporetto station and oriented us to apartment and was lovely) and the apartment is as it appears in the photos. Prior to the visit, Tom sent us the house rules, none of which seemed particularly out of the ordinary; however there are a lot of rules and in a new setting, it can be hard to remember all of them. When my friends accidentally left a bathroom light and one of the AC on when we left the house, I received 2 very angry text messages from Tom which seemed really out of proportion to what we had done. He said essentially that this wasn't an accident, that he would never rent to Americans again. He came by the house when my friends were home one morning and proceeded to lecture them about how the world can be divided into assholes and non-assholes (there were children present) and he ranted about how we hadn't left the trash out properly or locked the shutters (neither of which was explained in the rules). We felt like we were walking on egg shells the rest of our time there. There seemed to be no sense on Tom's part of how to be a gracious host or make his (paying) guests feel at home.
Although this is a fantastic place, I think that Tom perhaps has lost sight of how to treat his guests. Based on what I have seen in previous reviews, I suspect Tom will argue with this assessment but to give some perspective, our group was comprised of all professionals in our 40s and 50s (a couple of older kids along too)-we are all well-traveled and know how to take care of a home. There was no need to treat us with such suspicion or disrespect.