We had an unfortunate experience in Phil’s apartment and there are a few things other travelers should note before booking here:
1) As a few other reviewers have noted, the apartment was not very clean when we arrived. I think Phil’s cleaners either aren’t very good/consistent or aren’t showing up regularly. There also aren’t any Covid-standard supplies such as hand sanitizer or disinfectant available, which is off-putting during these times. Some people report that the apartment is very clean.... that was not our experience.
2) There was a strong smell of cat urine in the apartment. When going back over the listing, we noticed the 5-star review from a woman who rented this spot for a month with a dog and cat, so maybe we should have seen this coming... but if you aren’t okay with pet smells, this apartment isn’t for you.
3) Phil was unresponsive on a couple of key issues: firstly, there was no heat in the apartment when we arrived due to a faulty Nest thermostat. We are familiar with Nests and spent about an hour trying to troubleshoot it with no results (googling, hard-resetting, charging, etc.). We had a late check-in which he was very responsive for, but when we contacted him to alert him of the problem with heat—and later when we noticed that he had a plumbing problem and leaking pipe/toilet cistern—we had no response. First contact on these issues was before 10pm... late, but not so late that we wouldn’t expect a response.
Ultimately we had to leave the apartment and did not stay the night due to the heat and plumbing issues. Phil issued a partial refund, but given that the only time we spent here was fixing stuff that was broken when we arrived, I would have expected more.
I wish Phil the best and hope he got his apartment in order. Clearly some people have good experiences in this spot, but we cannot count ourselves among them.