I was disappointed with my first week in Vivien's apartment. We arrived on time but no proper check-in took place. We were handed the keys at the hall door on the street and left to find our own way up to the third floor.
A cold snap in temperature meant that the apartment was chilly and we wondered if it had been occupied in recent days. We turned on overhead wall heaters but only one of them worked.
We emailed Vivien for guidance on how to operate these heaters but discovered she was on holiday herself in Costa Rica which meant there was a long delay in receiving a reply. She told us to use two portable floor-level heaters until the wall heaters could be sorted out. With these heaters turned up full, the temperature in the apartment stayed around 18-19C (65F).
On our second evening, while my wife was preparing a meal in the kitchen, we had a complete power blackout, which was probably triggered by the use of the electric hob and the portable heaters at the same time. I had a flash light and found the fuse board and tripped the switch to restore power.
The following morning, while we had two portable heaters warming the flat, I put on an electric kettle to boil water and the power to all the sockets became overloaded and shut down. I unplugged one heater, and I flipped the switch for the sockets to restore power.
I emailed Vivien asking if there was something we should be aware of, or was there something we should avoid doing to prevent this happening again.
Vivien apologised for the problems and said she would make contact with the installer of the overhead heaters to get them working properly.
We were unlucky that the following day (Friday) was a national holiday followed by the weekend, which meant it was difficult to get anyone to respond to the problem. We sensed that nothing was going to be resolved until Vivien returned.
The day after Vivien returned I followed up about the wall heaters and she dropped by to the apartment to adjust them. Within a couple of minutes they were working fine. It was a pity this could not have been done a week earlier.
Vivien is very nice and friendly, and the apartment is just as others have described it.
It's located in a very good neighbourhood, within easy walking distance of train and metro stations, bus routes, and the major sights.
During my second week in the apartment, I was able to enjoy all of these, safe in the knowledge that the place was warm and that if something happened again Vivien would be on hand to sort it out.