The hosts are great people. My review is of the place and not the hosts. Here are my impressions:
1) NOISE is endless. There is a railroad right behind the house and the train goes every 15 mins. Entire house vibrates in addition to the noise of the passing carts.
If you planning to sleep in - forget it. The hosts live upstairs and their kids start running around and stumping on the ceiling at 6:30 every morning. You WILL hear every step, dropped toys/things, loud conversations.
We didn’t get a single night of good sleep because of all the noise.
2) LACK OF AIR CIRCULATION. The apartment is in the basement of the house. There are two windows at the ground level on the same side of the room. There is no A/C in the main room. The “cooler” mounted in the wall actually heats up the air. It was 80 inside, while outside temperature was 67. Our children couldn’t sleep because of the heat and lack of oxygen (in addition to the noise) and we had to send them home early.
There is a working A/C in the “bedroom”, but it doesn’t call the remainder of the place, making the bedroom the only cool place in the apartment.
3) THE PLACE IS OLD. There is an office-type ceiling in the bedroom with fluorescent lights. The shower is TINY. It is 2 ft x 2 ft. It’s impossible to take a shower without constantly tripping over yourself and bumping into the door or the faucet or the handle.
4) LOCATION IS GREAT. It is safe, plenty of shopping around, restaurants, park, etc. However, it was not enough to offset the disappointment related to everything else.
Overall, at almost $300/night, it is a terrible deal. I’d never stay in this place again and would strongly advise anyone against booking it. I have traveled the world and this was one of my worst experiences.
Again, my review is that of the accommodations not the people hosting it. They are very nice and very helpful.