Stayed in Williams rental during a recent visit to NY for my grandfather’s burial. My group consisted of 8 adults btwn the ages of 25-65.
Pros: Flight to NY arrived at 8:30am, we were very thankful that William allowed us to drop off our luggage at the rental while he quickly worked to clean the unit for us to check in early (prior guests had checked out that same morning). The AirBnb is easy to locate; just a 5 min walk from the subway. Beds are comfortable (no complaints from any of us), linens were clean, towels were nice and plush, water pressure was great, and despite there being 8 adults sharing 2 bedrooms and 1 bathroom we were pretty comfortable and made it work with the 1 bathroom. Kitchen is well stocked. We appreciated the extra items provided by William such as: make up remover wipes, lotions, soap, etc. Noise level coming from outside was low; we slept with the windows open (see below).
Cons: There was no AC in the unit; William informed the AC units had been removed due to the drop in temperature… this makes sense; however, the day we arrived was pretty warm outside which made it hot inside the unit despite us opening the windows; it did feel much better at night once it cooled off.
The bad: Unfortunately we did have 1 incident with William that left us all feeling pretty upset and uncomfortable during the rest of our stay… As mentioned above, unit was rented to attend my grandfather’s burial; we all came from out of town that same morning, I was able to check in around 2pm with the 1st group, the 2nd group arrived maybe 45 mins later. My grandfather’s funeral was at 4:30pm, as you can imagine we were all in a mad dash trying to freshen up after our flights to attend the funeral service… During the rush of everyone getting ready, William messaged me through AirBnb to ask for us to be conscious of the heavy walking (he lives directly under the unit), he mentioned that the previous guests were stomping which he thought was odd and felt was deliberate; unfortunately, I did not see his message as I was getting ready for the funeral… next thing I know, William was pounding on the door and yelling from the stairway saying we had to stop the loud walking RIGHT NOW! We were horrified!!! Once I opened door I apologized to William and told him we would be more conscious about it. Everyone was shocked at his delivery! I checked my phone to see if he had been messaging me about it and that’s when I saw the 1 message. I immediately messaged him back apologizing again and explained we all live in Ranch Style homes (1 floor) and didn’t realize we were walking so loud. Told him we would be more conscious about it going forward, gave him my cell# and asked him to please text me to get my immediate attention if it was still an issue. William did not reply back to my message which made us feel unwelcome at that point. Maybe he was just frustrated from the previous guests and had had enough of the noise, but his delivery was wrong. Communication between us had been great up until that moment; there was no need for that display. We were there for a funeral which he knew about… we were there for our grandfather’s/father’s burial, emotions were high and we were just trying to get ready. As a result of his display the rest of our stay felt uncomfortable for us; we were in constant fear of upsetting him again. I think an acknowledgment of my apology to him, and a quick apology from him for his outburst would’ve smoothed things out, but we got nothing.
We rented this unit on short notice because we wanted to all stay together in 1 place and the listing had great reviews… This could’ve been a one-off, but unfortunately this was my experience.