Rental Agents: Paris Attitude?

Well, I just booked myself onto United 930 roundtrip from SFO to Heathrow. It hasn't sunk in quite yet, but I imagine it will as time stumbles forward. I know my bank account is currently feeling the hit.

Well.

I started casually looking for a self-catering apartment about a month back. During a routine look through the adverts on FUSAC, I came across Paris Attitude -- it was the first ad I clicked on -- and started browsing through their collection of rentals. To wit, I thought they had a decent selection of rentals. And after I filled out their form, made a couple of selections, and sent it to them, they replied in a timely manner with a vaguely form letter (it had a name attached to it, but didn't seem like a lot of effort went into it).

Anyway, before I confirmed a selection, I had a question. Are any of these units particularly close to La Cinémathèque française? Since they were all in the 2nd, 3rd, and 5th arrondissements I thought it was a valid question. It's now over a month later, and nothing. I've pretty much written off renting from them at this point.

So the question now is, is this to be expected from the various rental agencies in Paris? Probably not. But if anybody has any leads or a better agency to go through, that knowledge would be appreciated. I haven't yet checked out PAP, so I'll do that next.

And before I forget, I wanted to spend around a thousand euros on rent but can go as high as fifteen hundred. I'm not allergic to agency fees, but I would like to avoid them as much as possible.

The Cinematheque is on rue de Bercy in the 12th, so, no, none of those arrondissements are nearby. But does it matter? Paris is not that big and you can easily get on the subway.

I can't help with rental agencies, but if you plan to look at PAP, look in"villégiatures" or seasonal renting. Most people won't bother renting for a short period if they are in PAP. You could try Craig's list for Paris and if you check back a couple of days here on TT, there was someone offering their apartment.

No, it doesn't matter anymore. It did for the moment I was writing that email but have since thought better of my choice in locations.

And really? I would've sworn it was more centrally located by looking on the map I had. Eh, oh well.

The cinematheque moved a couple of years ago. It used to be near the Eiffel Tower.

I can only comment on the apartment agency we went through last year. It was more or less a couple of people with mobile phones, a contact list, credit card processing ability and a website / email address. It wasn't anything like a fancy tourism company with a head office and lots of multi-lingual staff. Everything went well eventually, but remember, you won't have a front desk to run as you would in a hotel to if things go wrong. Our hot water didn't work (mid-winter - it blew all the fuses) and it took a fair bit of running around to pay phones, leaving messages, trying again, hoping for our paths to cross before things got nicely sorted out. It doesn't surprise me that specific questions didn't get answered.

As a side note, I wonder what locals/permanent residents think of having short-term tourists continually having access to their buildings when other residents/investors sub-let their apartments as short term holiday units. It really suited us, but I wonder if it's even legal. It is certainly a grey area or illegal to rent permanent residences out as holiday rentals in many places.