To begin, I want to be clear that we arrived quite soon after the bad flooding in Venice, so this should be read partly in light of that. I arrived to find Giacomo pretty stressed out and trying to clean the place. I think he had been let down by the cleaner/laundry, apparently because of the floods. He asked if I could come back in 1.5 hours when he had finished the cleaning. When I returned, the apartment was mostly clean, though the bathroom wasn't great, and I needed to re-clean the toilet.
As an apartment in general it's not bad, but it's also quite far from being great. I found it pretty unloved and super basic, some things don't work so well, and almost everything is scruffy. I have said the same to Giacomo. Even spending 100-150 Euro on some new furniture and crockery in the kitchen would have genuinely transformed things. I mean, I have stayed in a lot of air bnb's by now, but chipped, stained and mismatched cups?! broken toilet seat? The annoying thing is that it's so easy to improve! It is in my favourite area of town, really well located, and in that regard I can recommend it. It's on the 4th floor, so quite a lot of stair though.
Giacomo was super friendly, and good at keeping me updated on the flood situation. But I didn't spot that there was a city tax that wasn't included in the overall air bnb bill, (it is written in the 'extra information' section...but I'm sure I won't be the only one to miss that...
We had to pay 4 euro per person per night extra in cash at the end of our stay, not a massive amount of cash, and I wouldn't have minded if this was made clearer / included in the cost breakdown, but it just wasn't a great first impression to be told I needed to pay an unexpected bill.
There is wifi that works well, the heating too, and there is air con for the summer.
A 3 star review is fair, but I sincerely hope some changes will be made fairly quickly, as with a little tlc it has the potential to be a great place to stay in this wonderful city.