Unfortunately, I had to change my review from 2 stars down to 1 star. Keep in mind, I usually give hosts 5 stars and have almost always had great but with my experience with Martin, his rudeness, his gaslighting, and his checkin process, I can’t do the same.
I initially gave 2 because the listing was pretty nice, even if just a private room in close quarters with other guests. However, to check in Martin had us go to a random cafe a few blocks away, and we had to wait until after 2pm exactly to access to key through the digital kiosk (any earlier and he’ll charge you). The multiple codes he provided didn’t work and we had to message him back and forth until he eventually provided the correct code for a backup key. Process took about 1 hour.
FURTHERMORE, those weren’t even the right keys to get in. We didn’t realize the first time when we dropped our stuff off because Martin’s room cleaner ~happened~ to be at the front door to let us in the first time, but we realized it later that night at 1:30am when we were returning from visiting friends when the keys wouldn’t open the door.
In all fairness, Martin was very fast to respond when we called him at the time, but he said that he didn’t know what to tell us and that we’d have to find somewhere else to stay for the night. We tried getting in, wiggling the keys, and turning them every way we could for 1.5 hours, but they were either simply the wrong keys or the lock was broken. At 3am we had to Uber across Brooklyn to my friend’s place to sleep in his bed instead.
We had videos of those keys not working for us, the other nice guest also trying unsuccessfully with our keys the next morning, and the other guest easily getting in with his keys he was provided after he let us in to get our stuff.
I understand mistakes happen, but Martin was really rude when we called him on the phone, and has since been gaslighting us to Airbnb customer support saying that we were probably intoxicated, that we don’t know how to open doors in that state (??), and that we cost him money letting the other guests leave their bags longer for free (hosts usually do that for free anyway).
In the end, Martin unfortunately just came off as rude and cheap to us (he charges you $5 to carry your bags up the stairs, $20 to leave your bags for longer, $50 for early and late checkin/checkout).
Airbnb gave us a full refund, but honestly I would’ve rather just paid than going through this with Martin.