I stayed at Pet’s listing for about a week while I was taking classes at Columbia.
Overall the apartment itself is well appointed, nicely decorated, and most importantly incredibly clean. The Wi-Fi and TV also worked great. It was nice to have an smart TV to login to easily. Pet was kind enough to ensure the apartment was cool before I arrived by running the AC for a bit the day I was checking in given there was a heat wave going on. The apartment felt secure due to multiple keyed entries - you have to enter the building gate, then the side of the building has its own key, then the hallway section has its own locked door, and then the unit itself has a locked door. So once you are through all 4 doors you feel pretty safe.
The area itself is not the best - I ended up going to either Lenox or Frederick Douglas for food because these streets were more populated and had better restaurant options. Members in my program who live in NY would not let me walk home by myself given the location of Pet’s listing, so they either walked me home at night or I took a Lyft. When it rained homeless people would gather under the scaffolding from the park across the street to stay dry. I never had any safety issues during my stay.
While the apartment is nice and modern, the building itself is clearly in disrepair and in need of fixes. There was scaffolding up on the entire outside of the building and inside of the courtyard, so it seems they are working on this. It felt pretty standard though for a NY building.
The unit itself is on the corner of Adam Clayton and a two-lane street, so while you are not directly on Adam Clayton, it is quite loud at night. I came up with a system of running two rain sound apps on different devices - one close to the bedroom window and one close to the bed, wearing earplugs, and I purchased a sleep aid medication. This in combination with the AC noise made it possible to sleep. If I hadn’t had earplugs though I would have had a pretty rough time sleeping. If I was at the Airbnb and not immediately going to bed (which I mostly did) I would just wear noise cancelling headphones and listen to music to block out the noise.
Pet was very helpful in the beginning of my stay - making sure I had his friend’s number to let me in and as mentioned running the AC due to the heat wave. I did hear from Pet more than a typical Airbnb host. Most of it was fine, asking me to water his plants, providing trash instructions he forgot to tell me, reminding me to lower the curtains to keep the heat out, etc. Pet did ask me to lie to neighbors and tell them I was his friend if anyone talked to me in the building. This annoyed me - I get it I’m sure the building doesn’t allow short-term rentals, but to get this message after I checked in didn’t make me feel great about staying there.
Lastly, and maybe this is more normal and I’ve just never experienced it, but Pet or someone clearly lives in the Airbnb. The closets and dresser were full of clothes. I used the dining room table for my clothes. Again maybe this is normal and I just typically stay in Airbnbs that are exclusively setup for rental only.
I would not stay at this Airbnb listing again, and I will be in Harlem many more times throughout my program. Overall the unit was great, and it just comes down to there being better areas to stay in Harlem and I got a little bit of a weird vibe from Pet.