Avoid this listing and this host, Jake! The property is misreprented because while the photo of the room shows it is renovated and nice looking, the building the room is in and the street it’s on is super ratchet, decrepit, and grungy! The building looks like low income slums and full of what looks like poor immigrants. There are hoodlums loitering at the entrance of the building.
I had booked a 5 night stay at this place but wanted to check out after one night because I did not feel comfortable nor safe in this building.
I could not sleep on my first night here on a Tuesday. My sleep was constantly disrupted by stereo music outside, neighbors doing normal activities, and elevator beeps right by the room. The walls and windows of this building are super thin and seriously not suitable for a residential dwelling! I could hear people chopping vegetables in the kitchen up stairs, people talking in various foreign languages, coughing, phone notifications going off, people walking by in the hallway, bass music through the walls from what sounded like a distant club, and a guy having sex somewhere a few rooms down. The noises lasted all day from check in until 1am when people finally all went to bed. I finally fell asleep at 2 am but was woken up at 4 am by hoodlums playing the stereo outside! The thin walls really gave me anxiety because when people walked by and when people talked, it felt like they were in the room with me.
The listing also said there would be AC. Warning, it is a window unit! Because the photo did not show a window unit I assume the AC would be central AC and it would be a nice place. I arrived and found there was no AC installed. The host said he didn’t think I would need it in the spring time. The host promised a unit to be delivered at 2 separate times but did not follow through and stopped sending me updates and just ghosted me. He even got defensive and played it off as me being unreasonable for wanting AC in 60s weather. It was listed plainly as an amenity he offered. Hotels always have AC and they are not usually units that stick out the window! No hotel ever decides to remove or make the ac unavailable during cooler seasons either! If I had known from the photos AC was a ghetto window unit that was removed, I would have not booked this place. Don’t even think about opening windows if it ever gets stuffy and hot because noise was coming in with the window closed!
After one extremely uncomfortable night where I could not sleep, I messaged the host asking to check out early. The host, Jake, did not respond to my message for 16 hours and I had to escalate to AirBnB. In response to my noise complaints, he said I should go talk to the neighbors and ask them to quiet down. I am a single woman traveling alone so that would not have been safe late at night or really not appropriate in a hotel like environment. The noise was coming from everywhere, too! The host didn’t care and denied my request to check out early.
Just overall a terrible experience and terrible value. Please do not stay here. I paid $120/night after taxes and fees. For that price you can get a nice 3-4 star hotel in the same vicinity!
Pros:
Clean, close proximity to Penn station, bedding was comfortable, wifi worked
Cons:
—Probably around 150 sq feet
—Window looks into a wall. Feels like a prison.
—No hand towels or wash cloths provided. I asked host and was ignored like he didn’t see my message.
—Noise everywhere!! Could even hear people’s phones go off next door and above me!
—low income immigrants in the building and hoodlums outside making the environment feel unsafe and run down like slums
—Misleading representation of AC
—No hand soap in bathroom during COVID-19?
—threshold between bathroom and bedroom has a ledge which was a trip hazard
—Worst, host became unresponsive, was unempathetic and would not let me check out early. He just wanted to keep my money despite me being extremely uncomfortable and could not sleep. Airbnb support could not even reach him for 5 hours.