A friend and I stayed two nights in this property. Admittedly, she is more observant than I am and she had heard some horror stories about apartment rentals which maybe made her even more cautious and observant.
First, the positives: I messaged back and forth with the owner and she seems nice, friendly and responsive. She seemed to care about the property and our time there. The location was good for our plans the price was good relative to others in the area. The inside of the property looked like it had been recently renovated and it matched the pictures. The furnishings, especially in the bedrooms, were pretty basic, but acceptable. There was a nice flatscreen TV with streaming options. These are the reasons I give 3 stars.
For the negative: the facade on the front of the property looked like it was separated from the house and in disrepair. After we walked in the front door, the door leading to the first floor apartment had a broken window that had been "repaired" with cardboard. We didn't get in until around 8:30, and the owner left the key in the lock, not worried because "the apartment was on the second floor and no one would go up there." I was generally okay with this, but my friend was concerned. The key unlocks the deadbolt on the front door, but there were no other locks to secure it or the back door from the inside. (In hotels you often get that bar you can flip across the door to secure it from the inside.) That also made my friend uncomfortable, since we didn't know a previous renter hadn’t made a copy of the key. Nothing terrible, but it would have been nice if we could have secured it aside from the key. My friend noticed a strong smell of "dog", likely from the dog barking downstairs, but she seems to be okay after getting some Fabreeze. Other than that, one electric outlet was missing its faceplate, it looked like the floor had not been swept, and the toilet had not been cleaned.
The last comment has nothing to do with the property, but it was located adjacent to a corner store with graffiti-tagged corrugated steel security doors at night. As we pulled into the unfamiliar neighborhood at dusk, it did not give us a welcome feeling, but that may just be typical of Chicago and/or city apartment rentals.
In summary, we spent a fair amount for two nights in what was otherwise a fairly spacious apartment, but there were some things that will likely cause me not to use this service again.