This was a very mixed experience. First, there were two good points about the rental. First, the location was excellent -- right in the heart of Sydney's CBD and walkable to everything, and/or close to public transportation. Second, everything in the apartment generally worked -- including the barbecue by the pool.

On the other side of the ledger are several things. First, there was no in-person check-in; just a set of instructions to find a hidden lock-box at the bottom of a stairway in an alley in a downtown area. Second, and related to the first, the "sketchy" factor re the check-in was most likely because short-term rentals are not allowed in the building, which we found out awkwardly in the elevator from residents of the building on two different occasions.

Third, we had to clean and dust after we checked in because the cleaning was subpar. We also had to deal with dishes that had been left in the dishwasher and were not even clean, at that.

Fourth, we had to work around two different intrusions into the property in the one week we stayed there. The first was a mandatory fire inspection, which we completely understood -- no way around it; and at least the property manager was there to handle it. The second intrusion was worse -- it was unnecessary to do while we were there, and we were treated in a rotten and sneaky way. We had let the host know early in the stay that there was a light bulb out, and that we didn't mind or need it replaced. But the rep emailed to tell us the handyman needed to come in to address it, and that it couldn't wait until after we were gone. We thought that was strange but agreed -- thinking that changing a light bulb would take only a minute. Well, when the handyman got there -- with a different property management rep -- we found out they also planned minor surgery on the couch to fix a broken leg. (Which hadn't bothered us.) This required a half hour of work by two guys, including drilling, MORE dust and moving our things around. Totally uncool -- and again, sneaky, as the property management rep did not tell us this would be happening in advance even though she clearly knew about it.

We have stayed in 10-20 short-term rentals (some airbnb, some not) over the past 4 months of travel. This was one of our two worst experiences. So we would not stay here again and would not recommend it to others.