There were some pros and cons from our stay at Rochel’s place.
Pros
The apartment is large and beautiful. Our family of four were never crowded, (although the completely open plan nature of the apartment took some getting used to 😃).The kitchen is well equipped. The location is wonderful, right in the heart of Williamsburg and near the subway. Although overseas, Rochel communicated as well as she could with us and sorted out our problems as quickly as she could. Missing items were ordered and delivered within a day or two of our requesting. Her recommendations of where to eat and shop were spot on. We felt she genuinely wanted us to have a good stay.
Cons
Given that she is often overseas when guests arrive, Rochel needs more robust systems in place to ensure the apartment is ready for guests. We arrived in the early evening after a long flight. A non English speaking janitor let us in and we were told not to tell him were were Airbnb guests. The apartment was cold, dark and smelled slightly musty. The fridge contained a previous guests food, some of which was rotten. The apartment was freezing as the cleaner had not been in for a couple of days and no heating was left on for us. All four ceiling lights in the sitting room were broken for the duration of our 5 day stay. Several bulbs were out from side lights making the space very dark. Although Rochel told us where to find some spare bulbs so we could change them this was not an ideal start.
Guests need to know that both bedrooms are of restricted height, the upstairs ceiling is 5ft and the downstairs sleeping space is about 5ft 9 - lots of banged heads getting up in the night until we got used to it.
The heating system is an industrial gas fan heater - so very effective but very noisy. It was impossible to chat or watch TV when it was on, also the noise woke us up when it came on at night. Rochel kindly send us a couple of plug ins when we asked but it is a big space to heat and we were there during a cold snap.
Rochel sounds like a lovely lady and she has a beautiful place - but when charging $500 a night I think she needs to improve some things, particularly the arrival experience and pre-arrival checks.