Renters, beware. For the price point of this apartment, you will get the experience you're investing in–including the option to check out at any time without forfeiting all your money–by choosing a 4- or 5-star hotel. This quality of this apartment should be going at a rate less than half what they're charging per day.
When I moved my things into the apartment, it was absolutely filthy. There was long hair and large hairballs everywhere, bits of broken glass, gunk in the shower and on the bathroom floor, thick sticky rings on the dresser, a stain on the couch...I could go on. I purchased my own cleaning supplies because there were not very many onsite and took pictures as I cleaned (both management and Airbnb have the photos as well). When I used the vacuum that was sitting in the corner of the living room next to a dirty bucket and mop, I could literally see it pulling a layer of hair off the carpet.
Management did send another cleaning crew over at a time that was convenient to me and committed to sending them twice a week for my six-week stay. Airbnb requires you to work with the host before they will intervene and as far as I can tell so this seemed like an acceptable solution. Unfortunately, as the weeks progressed it did not deliver. They did not send the same crew each week and results were inconsistent enough (including once finding a dirty towel with my own makeup on it hung back in my bathroom post-cleaning), that I never felt like I could relax without inspecting everything or just not really using it.
The common area of the building isn't much better. The hall smells. The carpet has a trail of stains going all the way down from the top floor that look like something was leaking from a garbage bag. When someone moved the dirty mop and bucket from my apartment, they propped it up on a landing next to one of the mousetraps.
The final straw happened on week four of my stay (I was trying to be a good sport even though I was really uncomfortable). I went into the bathroom at 1am to find it flooded. It looked like clean water from the shower. But I had to clean it up myself as well as wash the towels because they were so wet there was nowhere to hang them to dry. They sent maintenance over but he didn't seem to find a reason for the flood and I'm still not sure they believed it happened. Needless to say, I was in a proper, clean, well-maintained hotel as quickly as I could–for not much more per day than I paid for this apartment.
For my trouble, management has refused to refund any money even though I moved out for the last 11 nights due to the conditions. They are still allowed to leverage the Airbnb platform. Airbnb did finally offer <1% of my investment as a refund. Because this was a long-term stay and I didn't report it within the first 72-hours (I was working directly with management at that time, per their guidance), I wasn't covered by their policy.
A lot can go wrong over the course of a multi-week rental and it doesn't all happen within the first 72 hours.
Lessons learned:
* Consider insurance when spending a lot of money on an Airbnb experience
* If considering a long term rental, have a friend or acquaintance do a site check first
* Do not try to be nice about anything that goes wrong. Report immediately to everyone you can even if you're expected to give the host a chance to correct
* Consider carefully whether Airbnb is the right platform for your needs, given price points and the flexibility hotels provide for room and date changes should anything go awry