Me and my girlfriend would consider ourselves experienced Airbnb users, and this was our worst stay ever.
In the order:
1. The area is dangerous. This was evident by simply strolling around, and confirmed repeatedly by locals, such as retailers (who often protect their counters behind bulletproof glass) and bus drivers.
2. The apartment is dirty. "Dirty" means not a bit of dust here and there, but potential presence of rats, as exemplified by the rat traps scattered in the house. I stopped even asking myself what multiple things found on the ground were.
3. Communication with the owner: mind-boggling. When I pointed out the first two points she told us that "if we did not feel safe should have not visited New York", and she complained that we had "high expectations". I leave you to your considerations about this.
4. Ah, pipes were exposed and the bathtub was not working. This forced one of the other customers to spend his evening trying to unclog it, not much successfully.
so, after one night, we decided to cancel our stay and go somewhere else.
take home message:
DO NOT GO THERE!!!
(unless you are really, REALLY desperate).