First off, I must say how pleased we were with the cleanliness of the apartment!
The rest of my review is saying things that have been hinted at by other reviewers but not quite said. I included all the things I wish other reviewers had mentioned, to make my expectations match the reality. I hope you find it helpful and honest and that it gives you enough information to draw your own conclusions on if you want to book. We picked this place because it was close to where a family member lives, near the Uni of Chicago.
Parking was not particularly convenient because after we booked, we found out there is no way for guests to buy additional overnight parking stickers and the host does not providing stickers for every night. We never found parking where he said we could park free, on a different street, so we had to park at someone else's rental that came with free parking five mins walk away one of the nights. Had it not been for the pandemic, we'd have planned to take public transport, but we had already booked the rental car when the host told us about the parking situation.
There was a nice fridge/freezer in the kitchen and mini fridges in the two lower level/basement bedrooms but nothing to make icecubes with - we were there during a prolonged heat wave. I hope the host will add icecube trays to his kitchen. (Personally, we don't care for the sounds fridges make in our bedrooms, but some people might not mind- we unplugged both of ours after the first night, no big deal. )
The kitchen had basics, and there was even butter and some Asian condiments and a couple beers in the fridge (thanks) and some olive oil, but it was lacking American/European table knives, for cutting food on one's plate or for spreading the butter. There was only one such knife and so many Chicago cuisines which might require the use of personal knives. If we'd realised this in advance, we'd have ordered a different food delivery the first night, that didn't need all of us to share one knife. The chef knives were great for cooking prep, but too big for substituting as table knives. For dinner plates, there were large dinner-sized plastic plates or lunch-sized china plates, so nothing we wanted to use in the microwave. The double sink was in a kitchen island and the stove/oven behind were you stand at the sink and a dishwasher next to the stove, so not the greatest kitchen layout, but workable if you don't have too many cooks at once. We found no dish drainer if we wanted to wash anything by hand and let it dry someplace. We appreciated the roll of kitchen towels because there was only one micro-cloth towel and one washcloth sized thing. There was a clean sponge (more if needed) and big bottle of really cheap dish soap. We would have liked a frying pan for a morning egg or two. There was a set of large pots with small metal handles.
The bath towels (the only size they had) were nice and fluffy. Only one out of three bathrooms had a convenient place to hang them to dry. There was plenty of soap and even shampoo and conditioner, but without knowing ahead of time what brands were provided, I had to bring my own. (You might call that too fussy of me, lol, but I have long hair.)
All bedrooms are on the street side of the building , two are in a lower level from the front entrance. There are some light blocking curtains put up (much needed at night) with tension rods, but they do not open, so you have to take the rods off to get any fresh air and give up the privacy to these low, near the sidewalk, windows which are seperated from the sidewalk by iron fence work and a bit of greenery. The one bedroom on the main floor has an included (perhaps converted closet?) space with french doors that is used as an office with a big desk- no windows to the outside, however.
One bedroom has a neighbor who is an early-morning-riser. Their room above creaks loudly - alot. From the other bedroom (the one next to the bathroom that has a nice modern washer and dryer) one hears creaks when this own apartment is being used upstairs, especially on the stairs, which was a bit more in our control, but it is not an apartment where you can be quiet enough not to wake the others when using the stairs and landing. It would probably have also woken up someone on the main floor bedroom, if we had used that one.
The basement/lower level also had an open room between the tow lower bedrooms/bathrooms with a couch and smart TV as advertised. It has the feel of a student apartment, with no one living there. Barely furnished, everything white and neutral, bare walls, but perfectly useable.
There is an airconditioning system for the downstairs, controlled up on the main floor, which we only ran for an hour or less, realizing it didn't cool the upstairs with the wooden floors. The downstairs is like a basement with cool tile floors even on a warm day and stayed cool even during the heat wave. We did use the main floor small airconditioner in the kitchen to take the edge off the extreme heat on the main level which was 6 steps up from the sidewalk to get to the apartment door.
Our lockbox on the fence outside with a 4-digit code failed when we tried to open it to check in, but our host was able to send someone over in 15 minutes to give us a set of keys and pick them up again on our check out day, even though he was away. This was probably a one-off unlucky glitch. There are