dreamweaver

Hi Fodorites! I'm new here, but been lurking a while, during the planning stages of our summer "vacation" to Paris. I just feel that I must warn others what to beware of about Paris, most particularly the apartment rental business. A little background: We are a family of four expats living in Germany, kids ages 8 and 13, not necessarily widely traveled, but not completely inexperienced either. Read on. (BTW, this rental agency is not one I have seen mention of on this forum, in case anyone wonders... but the apartment is in the 12th district, not far from the Gare de Lyon).

First, I originally told the owner that we would arrive sometime between 3 and 5 p.m. on 24 July, and he indicated that I should not arrive before 4 p.m. due to the market clean up, and no place to park. So I told him between 4:30 and 5:30, and then he says he hopes we don't arrive too late, since he must drive 600 km that evening after giving us the keys. So we get there around 4 p.m., I think, and then he wasn't ready for us anyway. His bags and clothes were everywhere, and the linens for the children's beds were not dry and so the beds were not ready. Further, the apartment was definitely not as clean as I expected it should be.

When I asked about the internet connection, he said I needed to use this extra modem cable that he had, and to use a certain phone number so that it was free. I did tell him that I had a network card in my laptop, and I thought it was supposed to be a high-speed internet connection, but he insisted that the modem cable was the way it had to be done. He gathered his things and left, without leaving passwords to the internet connection.

We spent an hour and a half trying to get the internet to work, looking through his papers (at his direction, since he couldn't remember the user name and password) and the TV didn't work (those extra 100 channels he said he had) either. He finally realizes that the whole thing won't work because he unplugged the cable modem service to plug in the computer modem cable that we didn't need anyway, because we should have been connecting to the high speed cable he had in the first place. All of this was not an especially great way to start the week. I told him during all of the phone calls that if we couldn't get the internet problem solved, we'd have to go stay somewhere else, since my husband had work that had to be done while we were there.

The towels in the bathroom were not very nice, they didn't match, and were very old. I guess they were clean, but I don't keep towels that are that old, even to use for rags. The clothes washer had a broken knob, and he gave us pliers to use if we needed to use the washer. There was only one tiny empty closet for us to use, and no empty drawers to put our clothes in. I expected the apartment to look like it did in the pictures, and it definitely did not, since there was much more clutter and things sitting around. I expected that this was an apartment that no one actually lived in, maybe that they had purchased with the intent of renting it out short term. I certainly didn't expect that the person who lived there would just be running out the door when we arrived.

I was really taken aback by the neighborhood, as well (12th district, BTW). We really didn't feel comfortable there. In retrospect, we shouldn't have ever given him any money, and found other accommodation immediately. I was, however, willing to try it in spite of the initial impressions, since we had said we'd rent the apartment for the week in good faith.

We had dinner and returned to the apartment by 9 p.m. for the night. We were awake most of the night. The person upstairs came slamming into the building at around 11 p.m., and had the TV on loud, and slammed around their apartment until 4 a.m. Monday morning. After that, we felt that we definitely could not have a pleasant stay in Paris in the apartment, and we left, receiving our 500 Euro deposit, and 400 Euros of the rental fee (which was only a portion of the total fee we paid), after much negotiation with the owner of the apartment. He also intimated that we had set out to purposely cause this problem, since he felt that ever since we arrived, we'd wanted to leave (due to my comments during the internet crisis).

We paid 580 Euros for one night of substandard lodging in a crappy apartment. I wouldn't even call this a one star accommodation. This was by far the worst experience we have ever had with accommodations anywhere. I've e-mailed the agency to let them know how dissatisfied we are, and request a refund, but don't expect to get it, or any response at all, for that matter.

Does anyone have any thoughts? Is this normal for a vacation apartment rental? Not clean, funky towels, no storage space, icky neighborhood? If you plan to rent an apartment, and these kinds of things would bother you, ASK QUESTIONS!!! Sorry for the length of this post, but I hope it helps others.

ira

Hi DW,

Sorry to hear about your unpleasant experience. Thanks for the warning.

>Is this normal for a vacation apartment rental?<

No.

How about telling us who rented this to you?

>We paid 580 Euros for one night of substandard lodging ...<

If it was an agency, perhaps you might be able to get some money back.

sandi_travelnut

Did you research the neighborhood before hand? Sorry you had such a disappointing stay.

dreamweaver

Hi ira and Sandi,

Thanks for reassuring me a bit that this was not a normal experience. And to clarify, the price of the rental was 140 Euros per night, not 580, 580 was just what we ended up spending for that one night, since the owner wouldn't give us all of our money back when we left.

Anyway, I was posting here to see what others had to say about this experience before I bashed the agency (after all, it could have been that my expectations were too high, I suppose!). So, for what it's worth, the agency is ahparis.com.
And Sandi, I did as much research as I knew how to do, I guess, but I have to say that my biggest problem is probably that I expect the rest of the world to do what I would do in any given situation (like provide fairly nice, matching towels, not try to rent out an apartment that is in a somewhat dodgy area, etc.) that I'm always surprised when it doesn't turn out that way. My bad, maybe I'll learn someday.

Thanks for the replies!

Kate

Dreamweaver, I'm sorry you had such an awful experience. I find the accomodation can really affect my trips, too. It certainly isn't standard, but occasionally we've probably all had the odd bad experience. You may just have to chalk it up to experience.

I've long since given up trying to suffer poor accomodation, and have become adept at checking out and running to the nearest posh establishment. It may hurt my pocket, but at least it doesn't hurt my memories.

Do tell us the rental agent though.

SuzieC

I had a similar experience once. But, it WAS my fault. I didn't check well, say here at Fodors...what the area around St. Severin church was like.
Also, I didn't know about the parisjaunes pages...
Anyway, my "landlord" is going to credit my costs on that apartment to one of his others in the Marais when I'm ready.
It was all my fault ... I think.

suze

Really sorry for your bad experience! Guess things turned out alright as "it's only money" and "thank goodness no one got hurt" -LOL.

While I don't know how you could have known about the apartment being bad and not looking like the photos, I'm guessing posting here on Fodors people could have described the atmosphere of the 13th to you, and/or maybe someone had dealt with the agency before.

wliwl

You would be doing all your fellow travellers a favor to tell who the agent was and which apt was the problem. You also should really leave a review on slowtrav.com. Unlucky!

dreamweaver

Okay, the agency was: www.ahparis.com

Apt. 109

And, if anyone wants to know, the hotel we fled to was very nice, but closer to Disneyland Paris, in Lognes. It's a Quality/Choice Hotel, www.lognes-marnelavallee.quality-hotel.fr. Lovely staff, fairly good service, as european hotels go.

cocofromdijon

as a private owner myself I do think it is outrageous!
if ahparis is a society, frighten them saying that you're going to tell the DGCCRF( La Direction générale de la Concurrence, de la Consommation et de la Répression des Fraudes,they surely know it like everybody else in France)that protects consumers against abuses like that (they can make a restaurant close down for bad hygiene for ex)
if you can read french :
http://www.finances.gouv.fr/DGCCRF/0...ns.htm?ru=01#4
good luck! (now your flat is 140€!)
corinne

vivi

How awful for you! I rented 2 places thru VRBO (Paris and Amsterdam) i June, they were wonderful, spotless, better than described on the internet.

I hope you get a refund and generate some bad publicity. Nobody wants to fly all the way to Paris to stay in a dump.

dreamweaver

Hi Corrine,

Thanks for that info. I can't read French, but I would like to report the company to a better business bureau or something like in France. It seems ahparis is a company, not a society, so did I understand that the DGCCRF can't help in this case? And, If I write them in English, do you suppose they can help? Thanks!

Michael

society (sociét&eacute is simply a company in French. Cocofromdijon simply used what is called a false friend.

cocofromdijon

thank you Michael I was about to say it is the same for them.
I can help you with a french translation if you wish, I'm not sure they can read english!
on your size try to translate this page to have an idea of what you can do and say.
http://www.finances.gouv.fr/DGCCRF/0...5/heberger.htm
I'm sure someone here will give you an efficient online translator.
coco : [email protected]

Nina66

Dreamweaver, you were so lucky that you were able to find a hotel room at the very last minute.

In 1990 we rented an apartment, dump would be a compliment, in Paris based on the neighborhood, Pl de Furstenburg, and the lovely photos that the French owner who lived near my husband's office, showed him. We had responded to an ad in a local French/English newspaper. Not only did she stick my husband for her lunch, but she stuck us with two weeks of unbearable living conditions.

She said that the lovely antique furniture had belonged to her parents ... read, old old delapidated junk. The towels were threadbare, the oilcloth (!) that covered the dining table, was full of cigarette burns, and the refrig had to be totally cleaned (by DH who has a stronger stomach), because it had been shut off with food left in it. If the bathroom door was open, you couldn't open the front door. The mattress was on the floor - no bed frame!! I guess the best part was that it was so dark, (overlooked a lightwell) that we couldn't see the apartment clearly.

We had no recourse because we had rented directly from the owner in San Francisco.

We had similar experiences in two other apartments. You have to start with the neighborhood, and then try to locate an apartment. Even then you are taking chances.

I had no idea that there was an agency that you could complain to. I'll etch that info in stone.

We tried constantly for most of the two weeks to find a hotel that we could stay in for the remainder of our stay, to no avail. We would have had to move three or four times during that period. Since DH was there for work and gone all day, that would have been a real pain.

Finally the Hotel Angleterre (sp) down the block, which I called every single day, had a vacancy on our last night. I absolutely refused to leave Paris from that apartment.

Having a 24/7 local contact is important, but is not always the answer, as we have found out numerous times.

One semi-decent place had no living room curtains. It was a top floor rear apartment, and the entire neighborhood could look directly into it. The 'claimed' that the curtains were being cleaned and would be hung in a few days. Over a week into our 3 week stay, after much pestering, they finally put up bedsheets .... we couldn't open them. That was their final answer - we never did see the 'cleaned' curtains. The apartment was cute, although the kitchen was not that clean and very the drawers were cluttered.

This was through a well known agency, Chez Vous. So you never know, you always take a chance no matter how much reseach you do. Personal recommendations o Fodors, Slow Travel are your best bet, but they are rarely available for your apartment.

You really lucked out in July, our dump was rented during February.

Christina

I don't think this is that outrageous as other folks, none of it sounds extremely unusual for the amount you were spending, except the problems with the internet thing and the beds not being ready.

You can't blame the agency for your dislike of the neighborhood or that neighbors are noisy. I just stayed in that neighborhood myself and wasn't that thrilled with it, but you chose it and part of the problem is that you chose based on price. That is a cheaper part of Paris; I didn't feel dangerous there, though, and had done considerable research ahead of time regarding cafes, places to shop, wine bars, etc. I just didn't care for it that much, but it's not horrific.

I think the problem is what you paid,k only 140 euro for an apt. that apparently was for at least four people (you mention children's beds). You can't expect a lot for that rate. Also, apartment living can be noisy; noisy neighbors are not uncommon, and cities can be noisy on top of that

That only thing I find unusual is the problems with the internet connection and with meeting someone on arrival (somewhat), and the beds not being ready.

But, you chose this kind of rental and arrival conditions should be known when you rent an apartment. I always understand them when I rent and prefer Parisian agencies, not the kind of things where you meet people at apartments, etc. I know some other people expect real personal service and for someone to meet them at the apt. I don't, I'd rather set my own schedule and go to an apt. office to pick up a key as I never know when I'm going to get through customs, get into Paris, etc.

It would be nice to have better towels, I agree, you have a point there, and the beds should have been made up and the linens dry.

There is nothing unusual about someone renting an apt. where someone actually lives. That isn't a reason to complaint, either. Lots of agencies do that, and if you wanted an apt. that was never owner-occupied and solely for rental, you should have specified that. There are some agencies that deal in them, or would know which ones were or weren't. I've stayed in owner-occupied places and prefer ones that are solely rentals myself. I got some space in any empty closet but did not get empty drawers, either, but hadn't expected them. I wasn't there that long, and sort of use my suitcase for a drawer anyway, when traveling. Some things didn't work exactly right in the ones I rented, but I wasn't staying in expensive places.

So, I just don't find most of what happened that unusual and think this is a good warning to others not to assume certain things nor to expect a lot from a cheap rental. It also is an example of why I am not one constantly urging others to rent vacation apts all the time when in town for only a couple days, and for those who don't know the city, but I know a lot of people on Fodors are always telling people to rent apartments.

janis

I agree w/ Christina - some of your complaints are certainly reasonable - but others are just the way things are.

MANY holiday rentals in Europe are somepne's home that are just rented out seasonally. And lack of storage is typical in most small European flats. Now - not having ANY empty drawers might be a problem. But closets are in short supply most everywhere.

The internet/TV snafu is a problem. But old-ish towels and little storage -- that is what you'd expect in a budget apartment and be very pleased if you got better.

And noisy neighbors - you could get that in a €50 per night place or a €300 place.

suze

I think Christina bring up an excellent point. The times I have been disappointed in a place I chose, was when I was trying to save money (i.e., a 57 euro room with shared toilet in Amsterdam was not so great).

That said, certainly it would be nice if everything worked as promised regarding TV, internet and the beds made up on time.

MorganB

Sorry to hear about your experience. The apartment not quite being ready isnt really that bad since he did take care of it and of course he can do nothing about neighbors stomping about. The missing nob sounds farily unsubtantial to me. However, the towels, clutter and general cleanlyness is unaccebtable. The internet issue was also bad.

Please dont generalize the 12th as one neighborhood. I live in the 12th and parts of it are lovely. The area you chose tends to be younger with night clubs and bars. It is not terribly upscale but is far from being a dumpy neighborhood. I dont know that I would pick it as a family traveling however. I think you simply made a bad choice for yourself. There is nothing wrong with the neighborhood.

The part of the 12th I live in is much quiter and has a more haussman look.

dreamweaver

Hi again everybody,

Well, the above comments in the "you get what you pay for" vein are not entirely unexpected, after lurking on the forum for sometime, and seeing that there are always comments of that nature.

However, I do feel that if you pay money (any amount, large or small) to stay overnight somewhere, you should fully expect and be entitled to beds made when you arrive (we made them OURSELVES after the linens finished air drying, BTW), towels that are fairly new and usable (these even had old stains in places), and a non-cluttered environment with all the appliances in top working condition.

I'm well aware that European houses and apartments are not flush with closets, I've lived in Germany for 11 years, 5 of them in a German house, with not one closet in it. When I said there was only one empty closet, I was including the possibility of empty wardrobes as well, not just (built-in) closets.

Yes, we chose this kind of rental, but not solely on the basis of cost. I had a reservation booked at the 3 star in Lognes, closer to Disney, for 150 Euros for a two bedroom hotel apartment/suite, before I changed plans and booked the apartment in Paris. I wanted to be closer to Paris, and the decision was based partly on that not on saving 10 Euro a night.

As for the 12th district, I didn't see that much of it, just mostly between the apartment and the Gare de Lyon, and that I didn't like. When I say "neighborhood" I don't necessarily mean what Parisians mean, I guess. I don't mean the whole 12th district is a dodgy place (although, we ended up having dinner later in the week at a brassierie just outside the Nation Metro station, and my husband has been sick since Friday because of the food, though I don't know whether that area is the 11th or 12th).

My expectations were obviously not met, and I'm sure we won't ever be renting anything like that again, from anyone. My husband and I are quite in agreement that the next time we go on holiday, we'll stay in a great hotel with all the amenities, since a vacation in this kind of situation is not a vacation at all.