We stayed in the apartment for 5 days and were pretty underwhelmed by the experience. When we arrived at the airport, we text messaged Erdal and received no reply. We also tried to call when we were on the street and couldn't find the property, when we finally found it, her niece (?) said she couldn't answer her phone because she was at work, go figure!

After finding the place we were sat down in the office while all the paperwork was filled out. As we have many tattoos, Erdal could not stop staring at us, which was fine at first but then started to make us feel uncomfortable.

We were directed to the apartment and showed through. It was a nice gesture that supplies were left in the fridge for us. There were also two fans for us to use. We read through the rules and noted the 'strict quiet time' between 10pm-8am however this seemed a reverse rule as we were constantly woken up by fighting in the stair way, children yelling and running through the stairways and various other noises through the night. I should also mention the buzzer at the front door to all the apartments sounds like it's right next to your ear, this might be due to the fact the main wooden door on the apartment is bowed and doesn't close properly.

There were flying ants throughout the apartment, mosquitos (my boyfriend is still nursing giant red welts all over himself) and because there are cracks and whatnot throughout the place including the door, cigarette smoke was constantly wafting through the apartment. There is absolutely no sunlight in this apartment, which makes it hard to wake up in the mornings.

The location IS good though if you want direct access to Taksim Square and Istikal St. The bathroom was probably the best room. The loungeroom smelt damp and musty.

When we checked out on Sunday, we received no information as to where to leave the keys so we went back to the office and were greeted by a lady who thought we need to 'change keys'. It took a while to explain that we were checking out.