Luxe 4.5-Bath Flat w/ AC & Bidet – Near Oxford St

Positive: The location Negative: Foul smell was dissipating from pipework within the sink cabinet in the ensuite bathroom of the small bedroom. This needs to be fixed. Furniture in the living room needs some updating to enhance comfort.

Smelly Spacious apartment Positive: The link that was to be sent to me the day before we arrived at the property did not include the code needed to retrieve the keys. We had to go to a store to get the keys but needed to give a code to the person at the store and we didn’t have it. It had a spacious living room, dining too and kitchen. Every bedroom had a bathroom plus a half bathroom in the hallway. Negative: The worst was the over powering foul smell. When you walk in the apartment you can smell old sewer pipes and some musty smell. All the bathrooms had that smell which leaked to the entire apartment but the worst was the bathroom attached to the smaller bedroom. That smell was horrendous and repudiating. The apartment was dated and needed repairs. We had problems with the wall light in one of the bedrooms ( we had to sleep with the lights on until miraculously the light turned off on its own in the middle of the night.) Also the water heater decided to not work for no reason ( we had cold showers that night). In addition, it was in a very busy street, in a heavily Muslim neighborhood. Flies were coming into the apt. from which I assume, via the walls. There is a Middle Easterner restaurant directly bellow and you can hear their music sometimes and smell the smoke from their hookah. Lots of tinny dead bugs on the floor. Zack was nice to offer to bring a handy man to help with extremely smelly bathroom but we were out all day and could not meet with him and the handy man. He brought pastries and wine from the supermarket across the street to apologize for the entry code problem during check in. Bottom line, I would definitely not stay there again, do not recommend.

Positive: Very thing was great beside there's no warm water :( Negative: No warm water

1. Music from restaurant/club below (we were on the 2nd floor) made us unable to get rest: first two nights kept us up until almost 4AM. We could also hear chairs being dragged across the floor throughout the night EVERY night until around 2AM-230AM. 2. AC unit in lounge spread what looked like tiny pieces of ashes over our items on the glass table beneath the unit. We had to clean these tiny “ashes” every day. Eventually we stopped using AC and had to deal with very hot weather we experienced. 3. Was a consistent bad smell in the bedroom of our kids (the room with two beds) during the entire length of our stay.4. Constant smell of hookah/shisha/flavored tobacco in the entire flat but especially the lounge area. We are all NON smokers and found this truly awful.5. Entire flat had visible dust over surfaces and the furniture and was not adequately clean.6. We had to figure out how to use the TV since the remote had dead batteries.7. The safe NEVER worked due to dead batteries so we had to carry our valuables (including our passports) with us the entire time we were in London.8. Several light switches didn't work or only partly worked, and we had to use the light control Rako app which we had to install and set up on our phones. Lights should not be complicated.Bottom line, unless you are an adult traveling alone and can deal with suboptimal conditions, avoid this place. It is definitely not something I would suggest for families.

FYI I have photos, chat documentation that support my comments. The flat location is good, the space is good & well represented in the listing. Problems: 1) check in info is provided 8 hours before; that is when you find out you have to walk 3 blocks to a random store to pick up the key. Really nice to do in December, w/ 5 people, one of whom has mobility limits; 2) the location is TOTALLY off. the link brings you to another building; & then it was hunt & peck until finding the actual location. the host was responsive at this time but still vague. WAY OFF; 3) related to that is there is a photo of the outside of a building on the listing (the one w the parking garage)--that building is in no way related to this property, & using street view w that only further serves to suggest another wrong location; 4) no toiletries, & by the time host responded to this, we had already purchased our own; no offer to compensate for supplying the unit; 5) one (!) bath towel per person, one dish towel -- no hand towels, washcloths, etc; 6) and for the main event... the King room bathroom smelled of mold and sewage. AWFUL. I see now that this has come up on other reviews on booking dot com. The shower was littered with mold & mildew. I have the photos. Curious there was no host response to this concern when notified. 7) there are other maintenance problems (lobby smells & is unclean; lights in living room do not turn off, some light bulbs out, other minor issues).