We stayed here for one month in August during the pandemic. I am not sure if this host has ever had a long term stay because the reviews are all very positive, but we did not have a good experience. I always give hosts and places the benefit of the doubt, but this stay was uncomfortable, disruptive and disappointing.
Please continue to read if you are interested in understanding the specifics behind our poor experience, otherwise in short I would not recommend this place for a long term stay. Perhaps a short stay would be ok.
Pros:
- Location of this place is great, close to the park, grocery stores and restaurants, on a very quiet street, parking was easy and quick access to the highway.
- Plenty of toilet paper, paper towels, cleaning products, soap, dishwasher and laundry supplies for our entire stay. That was really convenient.
- The other tenants living in the building were really nice and helpful when we had questions or needed to coordinate.
Cons:
Issues with cleanliness and the house:
The house was only surface level clean when we arrived. I would be surprised if this house was ever professionally cleaned. If you are looking for a place that is clean and minimal design, this is not that place. This is someone’s home that you would be stepping into to take care of while they are away.
- The fridge had leftover food scattered about, half empty drinks, takeout condiments in plastic containers, spilled sauces and smeared jam on the shelves. Which we were asked to keep and push to the side, I found this to be pretty disgusting handling someone else’s leftover food and being asked to clean it up. It should have been done prior to our arrival.
- The kitchen was fully equipped, but we had to clean anything we wanted to use as everything was visibly dirty.
- Drawers had visible crumbs and dirt, pots and pans were sticky, the stove top had leftover grease stains.
- The bathroom had what appeared to be leftover toiletries that were collecting dust and just scattered about. I understand being considerate and providing basic necessities, but I don’t think leaving half used deodorant and mouth wash is considerate and having to organize it on the host’s behalf to make space for your stuff.
- There were dog toys just left in the middle of the room and blankets stuffed under the couches.
- The house consistently smelled like dogs and musty. It now makes sense why the host asked to keep the windows open and air things out.
- You couldn’t use the garden seating, because no cushions were made available
- There was a grill, but it hadn’t been cleaned in a year, the host said we could clean it and go buy propane if we wanted to use it (this wasn't technically in the listing)
- There was a half bent baby pool just sitting in the middle of the garden
- The bed Is two twin size mattresses put together and they were put in sideways so they hit the middle of your back. It was extremely uncomfortable and we had to rearrange the mattresses so that we could each sleep on one mattress individually.
I am confident we left this place cleaner than when we arrived.
Issues with the host:
- The host did not inform us that she would not be available during our month long stay until after we arrived and encountered a problem. She made it clear that she was 2 hours away and could not come to help and couldn’t send a maintenance person during this time. I had to reach out to her multiple times to follow-up on trying to resolve issues and she asked for me to coordinate with the girl upstairs to work through problems. I did not expect to spend that much time resolving issues during my stay.
- Airbnb makes it very clear that you are a host and need to be available to resolve issues in a timely manner with guests. That absolutely did not happen here as she had no plan for resolving unexpected issues.
- Issues that occurred during our stay:
- The security alarm malfunctioned after a storm on day 2 of our stay and continuously beeped for 10 days straight. I had to reach out multiple times to get this resolved and push her to schedule a technician to come out. I had to meet with the technician and coordinate him coming again to resolve the issue. I received no follow-up from the host on whether it was fully resolved, no thank you for spending my time being inconvenienced with the technician. This was extremely irritating as we were working from home during this time.
- The outdoor furniture and lights had fallen the 2nd day we arrived, we had to clean up the furniture, broken glass and the lights no longer worked (She did ask the upstairs person to help with the broken glass, but it was not sufficient, dangerous and unusable so we ended up cleaning it up ourselves.)
- The air conditioning unit did not have the proper tube to use it in the window unit. We were asked to check in the basement, but no tube fit and the host suggested we could carry up an air conditioning unit from the basement. There were several old dusty units in the basement that we would have to carry up 2 flights up stairs if we wanted to use it. I don’t know how you can ask a guest to bring up a heavy air conditioning unit from the basement and figure out how to install it yourself. Keep in mind it’s the month of August in NY. The heat was extremely uncomfortable.