This apartment and Raanan have taught me that I should never again look for a short-term living situation in Airbnb. Despite its great location in the East Village and proximity to the L line, everything else about the studio was underwhelming. It looks better in pictures than it does in reality. That is because Raanan hides the brown liquid stains that are stuck to the bathroom walls and half of the furnishings seen in the pictures are no longer there. The apartment is also slanted. It is also important to be aware that, after completing our reservation on Airbnb, we were asked to sign a sublease agreement with Raanan’s company as our landlord. This might be to comply with local regulations, but it also effectively prevents you from changing your reservation with Airbnb after seeing the place in person. Finally, I noticed Raanan has created a new listing for this place, therefore removing all its past reviews.
My partner and I stayed 31 days in the apartment while we waited for our house in NYC to be ready. After we checked-in, it was clear that the apartment had been closed for some time and not cleaned properly. Most dishes, cups, and silverware were dirty. Raanan sent in a cleaning crew a week after the beginning of our stay. The crew could not remove the goop/mystery liquid stuck to the bathroom walls. The electricity shut off on the second day (only in the apartment and not in the rest of the building). Raanan came by after 1 hour to replace the fuse for a “larger” one, which we really appreciated; and we never had problems with it after that. But why was the fuse not large enough to simultaneously use the microwave and the AC in the first place? There were no big problems after that for the remaining of our stay, notwithstanding minor issues with bugs and the overall uncleanliness of the building and the studio. Previous reviews had mentioned problems with mice, but, thankfully, we did not see any. On a last note, the AC units worked just fine and not too loud, but the apartment felt cold when Fall arrived — probably because the building had not yet turned on the heating system.