Our apartments are concentrated in the city center of Florence. We do our best to ensure your apartment is near your university, within an approximately 30-minute commute by public transportation.
We cannot offer students the option to choose the location of their apartment as there are several factors that determine the placements of students taken from answers provided on the students' preferences survey. We make sure that all of our apartments are located within an approximately 30-minute commute by mass transit.
All of our apartments are either occupied or being cleaned and carefully prepared for the next occupants! Unfortunately, we are unable to take parents and students on tours of our apartments (we don't want to disturb the tenants!) but, you can refer to our photogallery to view photos of some of our apartments.
Comforts Of Italy apartments come with everything you'll need to be comfortable. A spacious apartment, with a comfortable bed in a Shared or Single bedroom, a living room, bathroom, and fully outfitted kitchen (refrigerator, stove, oven and/or convection-microwave, cooking supplies, plates, glasses and silverware, pots and pans) fill out the picture. We also supply you with linens, a duvet, and a blanket. You'll find a washing machine, but not a dryer (they're uncommon in Florence), and we don't supply small electronics like hairdryers.
Keep in mind that your home is an apartment in a building where people of many ages live: families with babies, people who wake up early to go to work, older people who may go to sleep early. Living in an apartment is different from staying in a hotel. Part of the experience is learning how to live with many different types of people, and to take care of your apartment like your home—because it is! Many things you'll do yourself (keep your kitchen clean, take out the trash, change the light bulbs), but when something goes wrong, you'll have the assistance of Comforts Of Italy's maintenance team to back you up!
All Comforts Of Italy residents live with other students or interns. You can request a single bedroom in a group apartment or a shared bedroom. You can request a specific person to be your apartment-mate, provided that you mutually request each other (and request the same apartment type and services!). We try our best to accommodate these requests, but we can't always guarantee it.
At the beginning of the term we ask all students to fill out a Roommate Agreement, where they specify apartment-wide policies for everything ranging from who cleans the dishes to how late someone can have a guest over. If worst comes to worst, we'll all get together and discuss the unpleasant situation in light of the rules that everyone originally agreed to.
Hopefully not! We're experienced real estate developers and managers, and we've created strict standards for what makes an apartment qualify for Comforts Of Italy's program. We look to correct any problems that come up immediately and to address any concerns that students have with any aspect of their accommodation. In extreme cases we have been able to move students, but this is not always an option (and most people prefer not to relocate during a 4-month term). In any event, moving to any new location is always somewhat stressful, so our initial advice is to spend some time adjusting to the city and your environment first.
Unfortunately, residents may not keep or care for pets or any animals in any Comforts Of Italy apartment.
We ask for your preferences to help establish which apartment and/or apartment-mates will help make your experience in Florence fantastic. We don't guarantee that we'll be able to provide you with every single thing you request. We're putting together the needs and wants of many students at a time, and it's a complicated jigsaw puzzle.
In the event that we can't provide you with something that costs extra, we'll of course refund the difference.
One of the advantages of Comforts Of Italy is that we have our own maintenance team that's responsible for fixing anything that goes wrong. Simply fill out our online Maintenance Request form, and we'll respond to you within one business day by phone or email to arrange a time to fix it.
Ensuring your personal safety is a priority we take very seriously. That's why we make sure that all of our apartments have secure locks and meet our strict security criteria. We also make sure that they're in attractive parts of safe neighborhoods. Florence is a safe city, but keep in mind that it is still a city, and standard city smarts are required by anyone who lives there. We'll talk about this in greater detail during orientation.
Legitimate housing emergencies, including gas leaks, large water leaks and fire are reasons to call the Comforts Of Italy emergency number (after you notify the police and/or fire department). We're available 24/7. You can also call us if you're locked out at 2am (but please try to get in touch with your roommates first—we do charge an after-hours lockout fee.) Serious personal emergencies relating to health and safety should be reported first to the police or handled by emergency medical personnel. We'll get involved as necessary.
We provide students with their apartment address and the email addresses of their apartment-mates approximately 10 days before check-in.
You are responsible for leaving your apartment in the same condition you found it. You'll receive an Apartment Check-In Form that we'll ask you to fill out on your arrival, which will point out any issues with the apartment. After that, we'd ask you to treat our apartment like you'd treat your home—because it is! (We have specific rules for things like smoking, hanging posters, etc., which we'll review with you on arrival).
You are responsible for informing us when something is damaged. Your security deposit is held as a guarantee in the event of damage you've caused or overages on your utilities allowance. We refund security deposits 60 days after the official checkout date, less any charges for damages or housing sanctions. In the event that damages exceed the amount of your security deposit, we will bill you for the excess.
All of our fees are calculated in euros. You may choose to pay by credit card or wire.
You can find our full cancellation policy here.
All Comforts Of Italy residents pay a security deposit prior to obtaining an apartment. These deposits are designed to enforce compliance with our regulations. They are refundable, subject to any applicable deductions for damages, missing items, and/or unpaid sanctions. The security deposit will be returned to the same credit card used to place the deposit within 60 days of your official checkout date, or as specified by your host institution. If your issuing bank has changed, please let us know your new wire bank details so that we can refund the deposit to your current credit card. You can find details about our payment and cancellation policy here, and about our apartments here.
Via Sant'Egidio, 12 - 50122 FLORENCE, ITALY
+039 055.2001956