Penelope's space seemed like a dream: a private room and bathroom in the hip neighborhood of Condessa. Other reviewers said the space was quiet so I went for it. Penelope responded promptly to any communication I sent. When I arrived, no one came to the door for five minutes while I stood outside in a drizzle. The man who let me in did not offer to help me with my bags while we climbed the three flights of stairs (which had not been mentioned in the listing).The woman caring for the place, Veronica, was friendly but did not speak English. She was still cleaning the room when I was ushered upstairs. Nobody showed me to the patio that the listing boasted about. There was a ton of stuff crowding around the sides of the stairwell. It was not well maintained at all.
The room was small but had everything one might need. The bathroom door did not shut all of the way and was missing a doorknob on the inside (just had a screw sticking out). But it did have hot water and clean towels.
The building is LOUD. SO LOUD. Another guest was playing loud music and it flooded my room. While trying to sleep in the evening, the other guests coming and going echoed around the stairwell and made it impossible to sleep. There must have been a shared bathroom or something outside of this room as I heard a squeaky door opening and shutting all night. To make matters worse, the bed was SO HARD I was laying with one of the pillows under my back to make it bearable. It was incredibly painful. The "mattress" is just two old, gross slabs of foam.
After I was finally able to get to sleep around 1 am, I was awoken around 5 because my legs were itching. I was covered in bites! I got up and pulled the sheets off the bed to find bugs scattering for cover. I was not sure if they were bedbugs or what so I immediately phoned Penelope and she let me put my clothes in her dryer. I got my stuff together and left the room since there was no way I would be sleeping anymore with bugs in the bed. Penelope let me store my stuff in front of her apartment but did not offer me another room or a refund after the bugs. She even tried blaming it on me! I was left standing in their garage for 2 hours until coffee shops opened up nearby and spent my last day in Mexico City extremely tired.
For the price you can get a room at any number of hotels or other Airbnb's that are clean and quiet in great locations.