Positives: ample space, kitchen was spacious and had most anything you may need. Easy check in.
Enjoyed the record player and an eclectic selection of records.
Enjoyed the sun room in the kitchen and back yard /garden space.
Lights on dimmer switches.
Not the closest to The Underground (Earl’s Court is the closest station) but not as pricey as flats closer to the stations either.
Liked the doors in the main corridor that separated bedrooms from kitchen/living space. Noises didn’t carry throughout the flat.
Oil, spices and kitchen basics are present. Also has dish soap, paper towels, trash bags, etc.
Fans available to help with cooling.
Sainsbury’s just down the street was very convenient.
Negatives: we received a message before arrival from the host that one of the toilets was not working correctly and should be repaired before we arrived. It doesn’t seem this ever happened. We didn’t know which toilet was referred to as BOTH toilets had issues- one didn’t have a flush button at all and we had to use something to stick into the toilet to make the mechanism work. The other had a seat that was falling off and wouldn’t stay in position. Quite frustrating.
The shower in the bedroom IS NOT AS PICTURED. There is a door opening to the small bathroom from the bedroom that does not close (probably because of humidity in the bathroom). The bathroom is open and has a shower in the corner; there are no shower doors as pictured, so the entire bathroom floor gets wet when using the shower. This wouldn’t be so bad if there had been a bathmat, but there was not one. If someone uses the shower, and another person needs to use the bathroom, the second person just has wet feet regardless of what you do. There is no shelving or any storage space in the bedroom bathroom. The sink is different than pictured and does NOT have a hanging bar around the sink. The edge of the sink is angled towards the sink bowl so you can’t put much there without it falling into the sink. Also, bugs found daily in the shower (Roly-poly bugs) and spiders here and there. Maybe that’s common for the area- not sure.
The bedroom floor gets wet because you cannot close the door, so the room gets wet and makes things humid.
It felt very much as if we were staying with a relative while they were away. The kitchen had lots of opened food in the cabinets (Nutella, peanut butter, tea, instant coffee, etc)- good or bad depending on your preference but perhaps not the best for hygiene sake.
The flat seemed as if it had not been cleaned well prior to our stay. Towels seemed dirty and stained and definitely not fresh. Many of the dishes and cutlery in the cabinets were dirty and had to be re-washed prior to use. Dead spider carcass on the console beneath the television. Pillows smash down to nothing. Duvet did not seem like the right size as it was about a foot too short to even cover the entire mattress.
The SIRENS! Oh, my, they go all day and night! Perhaps because the flat is close to a hospital, but there are so many sirens! If you close the windows it does a pretty good job of blocking out the noise, but when the temperature is hot outside it would be great to have some windows open, but it was much too noisy to keep windows open at night while sleeping.
Wish there were instructions on how to use the kitchen and laundry appliances.
The ad mentions no stairs, but this is a basement flat so there are stairs to get to the flat (but no stairs in the flat). One of the bedroom windows could be easily accessed by anyone that walked down the stairs.
There was no shampoo and conditioner as mentioned in the ad.