Ethic Etapes Eugène Hénaff - Hostel

We didn't feel safe in the area, and the streets around the building had dog poo and spit. There was nowhere decent to have a drink nearby. My partner and I decided not to stay, so we had to pay for another hotel, and getting there meant another 35-minute walk to the metro. The trip from the train station had already taken 40 minutes. It ruined a holiday we'd worked hard to save for, and we're now trying to get our money back for a stay we never made. We feel duped, and advise people to avoid this place. Paris itself is a beautiful city in the centre, but this experience spoiled our holiday. This is not what the description led us to expect as a hotel. It felt more like a hostel, a YMCA, or a halfway house. We saw signs above the doors suggesting it was a YMCA, and the rooms looked like dorms, with personal photos on the walls like a teenager's bedroom. As we were collecting our bags, staff were cleaning the rooms. When we arrived, teenage boys were hanging around the entrance. There was a staffed reception, but the man there had to call someone for the hotel side, and we couldn't check in. We were told we could leave our bags in a baggage room. To get to the lift and rooms, we had to pass through a huge glass front door inside the building that seemed to be for security, which worried us. The baggage room smelled awful and had a moldy fridge in it. We were then escorted back to the front. We were already uneasy about the area, which seemed like one of the poorest in paris, and the building didn't feel like a hotel to us.