On first impressions, Paola's apartment is absolutely gorgeous. Beautiful tasteful decor, comfortable bed, great lighting and high end fixtures. Amazing location and great amenities (laundry machine, filtered water, wine bottle, bose speaker, tv with Netflix). We really wanted to love this place HOWEVER, there are a couple of major issues that affected the quality of our stay (in order of importance):
1. Our Airbnb agreement said checkout at 11AM, however at 920AM we got a message from owner saying cleaning lady was en route to apartment. Within 6 minutes she was in the living room unannounced. This made me very uncomfortable and it was only because I'm a fluent Spanish speaker that I was able to understand the situation and ask her to come back later. She refused several times until the owner and I were able to text. It was very chaotic leaving and trying to pack knowing she had been in the space without my consent.
2. Hot water in shower was very periodic. Some days it was fine, others it was freezing cold and essentially unbearable given the 40 degree mornings we had in Mexico City. On our last morning, there was no water at all in the apartment.
3. Daniel let us know there was a leak in the bathroom which warped the floors. This was fine, however - we soon realized that it had resulted in a terrible mildew smell in the bathroom that traveled through the whole apartment unless the door was always kept closed. Not pleasant.
4. The apartment looked gorgeous on first inspection, however the floors were very dirty. I kept socks on the entire time so as not to have black dusty feet. There was tons of hair in the shower. The clean towels were also still slightly damp.
5. We were not aware that there were no actual windows whatsoever in the home. There is a patio from an internal courtyard which receives some natural light from the top floors, however it can feel very cavelike. We didn't mind this too much, but for longer stays this is quite odd and you should be mindful of the choice.
This apartment has so much potential and the owners clearly were very thoughtful in many cases, but cleanliness is a must and in order to fully enjoy this experience, it needs some upgrades (plumbing, water leaks).