A mixed experience. Starting with the positives, the apartment is a great space in a very good location near to the Anzac memorial, the Botanical Gardens and a nice walk to Circular Quay. It offers a great place to work or to relax and has lots of handy businesses nearby. It's also an excellent place to cook, with a great, well-furnished kitchen. The bed and sofa are comfy and the whole place has a very stylish, retro feel. Overall we felt at home there. It should be noted that we were at the property during the worst of Australia's Covid-19 pandemic and once we got settled there and got to know the area we felt happy enough to extend our stay twice.
As for the negatives, the building is an old, converted industrial space and therefore there are some inevitable issues with it. Sound is an obvious one. It is a hugely noisy apartment. Any time a person upstairs walks around, you can hear it. Anytime a person next door or below speaks, you can hear it. Moreover, the neighbours opposite would, at weekends, talk and laugh loudly all night. After going round in the early hours of the morning to ask them to be quiet (we're talking 2.30am and 4.30am here) on two consecutive weekends we finally started to move our bed to the far wall to try to reduce the disturbance. I don't think the neighbours were even particularly loud - it's because of the nature of the building. Something else related to the age of the building is the cockroaches. Although the management had set many traps, potential guests should be warned that you'd need to pick up dead bugs two or three times a week. Another thing to point out related to this is the lack of a lift/elevator. Older people, or people with young families, might be put off. Finally, because of the style of the apartment it gets quite cold and definitely doesn't have a cosy feel if the weather is bad.
We had numerous problems with the electrics and the plumbing when we were there. To be fair, we stayed for many weeks and so perhaps this was bound to happen but in one week we had visits from a plumber, an electrician and two builders. The builders were involved because before we moved in, the apartment below had flooded and, when we were at the property, this happened again. The builders said that this was probably because of a lack of sealing in the kitchen in the apartment and therefore had to waterproof the floor and then lay rubber mats down underneath the fridge and freezer. On a side note, the fridge, freezer and toaster were all pretty unreliable and then oven is rather old. For example, it doesn't have a dial to let you know the heat insider. As noted earlier, the kitchen space is excellent, but the appliances aren't so good.
As you might expect, we had to be in touch with the management company a lot during our stay and this was also a largely negative experience. When we starting using their phone number, rather than sending text messages on the app, communication improved but until then there were numerous misunderstandings when we tried to make arrangements for the extension of the stay. It wasn't clear if I was communicating with a real person, many people, or an AI. It wasn't just communicating us with them - the company told us that we'd be able to extend and then did not contact us to tell us that the owner had changed his mind. Therefore it came as a nasty surprise when, after I had taken the initiative and sent a reminder, we were told that actually we weren't going to be able to extend further. No apology was offered for this and I actually found the management company particularly indifferent and unhelpful on this occasion. That said, the tradespeople who visited and the people we spoke to on the phone were all polite, friendly and helpful.
One thing that was particularly upsetting was the lack of flexibility with check in time. At most Airbnbs if early check in is not possible then usually you can leave your luggage. We needed to do this as the Covid-19 pandemic was starting to affect Australia and we had nowhere else to go. The management company told us that we would have to pay for an extra night to be able to leave our luggage at the property and instead they directed us to a "partner" where we could pay to leave our luggage. The price quoted was not competitive and we found a nearby fitness equipment store which stored luggage for about half the price. This added to our stress and made us feel exploited. When it can to the check out no flexibility was given and we were told we had to be out at 10am sharp. All in all it left a bitter taste.
I understand that we were staying at the apartment in unusual circumstances and so had a very particular experience. Overall, we grew to be quite fond of the apartment and were a little sorry to leave. However, we also had a number of problems which meant that we won't only look back with happy memories.