Can anyone suggest a good holiday apartment agency for Paris?

[allmytimeonmumsnet]

We have decided to take mumsnet advice and travel by eurostar (although I can't locate tickets for £59!) and to book a private apartment to stay.

I have tried yellowstay.com - only 1 is availabile in Place de Vosges and its a bit too posh for us. Same with Saco Apartments - too expensive. I've found loads of perfect apartments through private sites but none of them get back to me so I think I'd like to find an agency which will show me real availability.

Can anyone recommend on which has normal apartments - not the 5star sort where you wouldn't dare to take 3 kids!. I'd prefer an older building but I'm not bothered about living with antiques or designer furniture. Any suggestions? Thanks

When are you going, and how long for? You can rent my DD's appartment in the 7th next to the Eiffel tower, for peanuts if she is at home in England!

Thanks Alibubbles. We are traveling on the 28th April and returning 1st May.

Though we had found a great place through yellowstay by changing the dates by one day but they took so long to get back to me about allowing all 3 kids in a 4 person apartment that now it has been booked by someone else.... Grrr..... so still looking

I've done fine with www.vrbo.com. It is all individual places. Meant for Americans, really, I think.

I've also used this place - one of their houseboats. Was nice.

This is a more French site. I've not rented through it, but I've emailed potential places, it seems competant. Will have lots in Paris, I think, as it's a French site, I think.

Trying to dig up another place we stayed in paris, might post again.

Here . Really for a gay clientele, I think, lots of places in Le Marais, but nice enough.

I think I recommended yellowstay to you allmytime... I have to say after my experience with them last Friday I totally retract any recommendations that I may ever have made! I got such a snotty phone call five days after we returned from Paris TELLING (not asking) me that I hadn't left the keys behind. I explained exactly where they had been left, queried why it had taken five days to contact me and the woman was so rude I will never use them again. I e-mailed a complaint, but needless to say they didn't respond.

Sunny that is awful. Why do people think its OK to be so rude. Still struggling here - the head teacher is refusing to grant permission for DD1 as she has sats later in the month so we have now shifted back to our earlier dates (only 1 day difference its so ridiculous). Have a couple of possibilities with a company called Parissimo. Will avoid YellowStay now!

Finally booked an apartment through a small "agency" called perfectlyparis.com

The apartment is on Rue de Bellefond in the 9th and is only 5mins walk from the Gare du Nord where we will arrive. It was ?200 a night which was a bit more than we wanted to pay but its a two bedroom one. Of all the ones we looked at the only cheaper ones we were offered would mean sleeping on a sofabed without a proper eating area and this one is only £20 a night more! so we felt it was worth the luxuary. Looks gorgeous. About to book the trains now. Just can't make my mind up about a 5.30 start for the sake of more security. 7.30 would still be hard anyway.

Feeling really excited now. Never done anything like this with the kids before.

Glad you found something allmytime. Let us know how you get on; it's unlikely we'll make it to Paris again before we emigrate but if the visa process doesn't speed up you never know ...

Sunny - did you leave negative feedback for them on their website?

Have just seen this allmytime - funnily enough they never published my review!!!! I keep meaning to see if DH can hack into their server and add it myself