TLDR: terrible. This is a lower quality hostel with pests, ac aimed at your face while you sleep, and a nightmare host.
This was the most terrible experience I've had on airbnb. I've stayed at hostels before, and this was worse for a number of reasons. First of all, Roy's approach to this whole thing is sideways. He hides the code to the place in confusing instructions. It took me about 15 minutes of reading all ~15 of his messages, watching his video (which doesn't actually tell you anything besides read the full description), and then trying to find it in all of the text of the place. I asked him how to get in, and he told me to read all previous messages. He himself called the checkin instructions hidden, and he pairs that with a code he wants you to send him when you find it. From the start, he's preparing to win a conflict argument so he can claim you didnt read the instructions or description when you don't send him the code.
Now we arrive at the place, and we have to walk through an alley way that our uber driver isnt sure he can drive through. I'm honestly a bit concerned with walking through any dark alleys in Newark. When we find the place, it is clearly an old house that had minimal renovations done to shove as many units as possible into it.
Next, we walk in, and the first thing I see is a small red roach looking bug on the side of the entrace hall. Not a great sign. Throughout the night we stayed here, we found about four more of these guys scattered throughout, including one in our bedroom. I dont know what they are, but i hope I did not somehow take any home. Also, in conflict resolution with AirBNB, I posted a photo of the thing and Roy referred to it as a fly. I can't identify the red roach-looking pests, but they are very clearly not flies.
Next, we get to the room and there's a motel-style tiling on the floor, the bed takes up most of the room, there's no window, and it shared a crappy bathroom with another unit. Hard to complain about these details because they are not in conflict with the description, but from the photos this was not what I was expecting.
My SO and I got into the bed to just close our eyes and get through the night, and then we realize this makeshift vent is aimed right at our heads blasting AC at our heads and there's no way to turn it off. When I brought this up with Roy, he said they would bring another blanket to keep us warm. This is a "solution" that clearly doesn't solve our problem (are we suppose to suffocate our heads under a blanket all night to hide from the vent?), but a "check the box" response for conflict resolution. Just terrible.
Then, when I talk with Roy about all of this, he claimed there were no pests, I took a photo as proof, and then he claimed it was a fly. The answers to the rest were grabs at justifying keeping my money. My SO told me she didn't feel comfortable staying there, so we bit our losses and reserved another airbnb in the area.
This was a nightmare. It's not worth it. Please let me save you from the same experience, don't stay here.