English review: on check in day the toilet wasn't flushing. I don't know if this is true, but someone told us there's a BIG tank(maybe on the roof) that supplies the toilet tank with toilet water and this BIG tank is empty. This is a 1st for me in Latin America, but we'll survive. The water to both sinks, shower, and washing machine work so that's good, we'll take 4/5 but this is strange. Finally, after our 4th night, the toilet tank is filling up with water, so no more buckets of water to flush the toilet.
The apt is on the 2nd floor, but like many apt bldgs in Latin America, the ground fl is 0, the 2nd floor is 1, and the 3rd fl is the 2nd which means there are 2 flights of stairs to walk up which is ok for us, but something to consider for people with less mobility. In the US, the 1st fl is the ground fl and 1 flight of stairs up would be the 2nd.
The balcony off of the bedroom faces north directly into the cemetery across the st. This is another 1st. The st below the balcony is extremely busy and loud. Loud trucks, buses, and motorcycles use this st all day. Trucks and buses big enough to shake the bldg. We have earplugs, so we'll survive. The curtains in the room are definitely NOT blackout curtains; you can clearly see in the photo the amount of light through the curtains. Also, the curtains don't even cover the entire balcony window.
There isn't a proper mirror in the bathroom or the bedroom. There's a 15cm mirror in the bedroom and a 15cm mirror in the bathroom. They're tiny, but we'll survive. Also, the apt was only supplied with 1 towel which is crazy unless the reservation is for 1 person which in our case it wasn't, so we had to share 1 towel during our week long stay. To the host: if you had previous guest steal the towels, file a complaint with Airbnb and replace the towels. Also, if a previous guest is complaining about the lack of towels, the solution is to supply more than 1 towel NOT respond with 1 towel is what we supply the apt with; that's an anti-business response. Tons of blankets but who needs blankets when it's 90 degrees out.
A previous guest who seemed to be from France wrote he felt the neighborhood was dangerous. Well, we walked in every direction in this barrio and it seems more dirty than dangerous. There's a few annoying street dogs roaming around so maybe he has a street dog phobia. We saw 3 dead dogs in the barrio but that's normal in MX....unfortunately. The apt is on the kind of st that has abandoned vehicles and young guys riding their loud dirt bikes up and down the st while honking at almost midnight on a Thursday, but we'll survive.
Being a foreigner in this neighborhood is like being an animal in a zoo; everyone is staring at us like they've never seen a non-mexican before. I imagine the people in this neighborhood NEVER leave their neighborhood; they definitely don't go as far as Roma or Polanco, so if you enjoy being stared at like a circus freak, this is the place for you.
We took the metro from the Peñon Viejo station to El Angel de la independencia and it took 90 minutes. The metro in CDMX isn't the best, but it's almost free at 5 pesos. We also took it back at night which felt more annoying than dangerous because at 9pm the metro was packed with commuters. We walked back to the Airbnb and again, the only thing that seemed dangerous were the st dogs who are like most dogs, all bark and no bite.
The kitchen is sparsley equipped. 1 spoon, 2 forks( 1 mangled like it was caught in a garbage disposal), and the usual scratched to hell Teflon pans. To anyone reading this: DO NOT USE METAL UTENSILS OR ANYTHING METAL WITH TEFLON POTS AND PANS! You are ruining/scratching the Teflon coating and now ingesting Teflon which can't possibly be healthy. There was an empty 20L water jug that we walked down to the store and swapped out for a new one for 45 pesos; I'd be nice if this water jug was full when we arrived for our week long stay but at this price pt, it's ok.
There's a broken microwave under the kitchen sink. I've seen this a lot in Latin America; Airbnb host will leave broken appliances, furniture, etc in their rental. NOTE TO THE HOST: your guest doesn't want to arrive at your rental and see broken items. Why? Because a host could falsely accuse the guest of breaking this already broken item. All day long in MX there are guys in trucks driving by playing an annoying recording of a kid offering to take junk like a microwave. Anyone who has been to CDMX knows this goofy recording. Also broken, the living room table. Well, it's not actually broken, but 3 of the legs are not attached to the table top properly. The screws are too short. I'm no carpenter but this is a simple fix the host needs to remedy. Be careful with this table. Also, the sofa is a little broken; the frame underneath is broken.
The best parts about this Airbnb: the self check in with a coded keypad is always a positive; I'm traveling and the last thing I want to do is walk around with keys. The 150cm wide bed which is a queen in the US, but bring your own pillows if you can because like many things in this apt, they're lacking. The 2 smart TVs were nice to have. The host has Netflix logged in and ready to go. The wifi is a very stable 5.4 Mbps download, not the fastest but consistent. The washing machine was nice