I'll start off with the good things - the apartment is in a perfect location. It's close to Union square and Madison Square Park for easy transportation to anywhere in Manhattan and farther with the subway. There are also loads of great restaurants nearby for all sorts of food.
Unfortunately there were two big miscommunications, the first is that the cleaning staff had not come in between my stay and the previous stay, so I walked into an Airbnb that was still completely dirty from the previous person. I called Airbnb and they gave me the option of staying, or reimbursing me for 1 night of hotel in hopes that a cleaner would come in the morning, but it was pouring rain and I had gotten in around 9-10pm at night so it seemed difficult to make that move, and Imran had not responded to any messages so I didn't believe there would be a cleaner coming in the morning by the time I needed to check out of the hotel. So, I had to pick up around 3 full garbage bags full of trash around the apartment, changed the sheets, got quarters and did the laundry, and wiped everything down. This is unacceptable, especially in a time where there are still concerns with COVID and cleanliness of apartments.
The second was that the Airbnb address listed on one of the pages of the listing was incorrect, so I ended up at the wrong apartment trying combinations to get into the lockbox for a while before realizing that there is a different address listed on one of the other check-in pages. I know others had encountered this because I saw the same code being tried on those lock boxes at the wrong address. So again, imagine standing out in the rain, trying to get into this Airbnb, its 9pm, and you finally find out the address listed is wrong. Again, unacceptable.
Leading up to this, I had also sent 2 messages when I originally booked the Airbnb and earlier on the day-of when I was checking in, when I was having trouble checking in, and when I encountered the huge mess when I finally got in.
Imran finally responded the next day and helped to rectify the situation by offering a % of my money back if I were to stay at the Airbnb for the rest of my time there. This certainly did help, but this whole experience was shocking to me. I've rented close to ~30 Airbnbs over the last ~7-8 years or so and never ran into problems such as this. His communication improved after realizing the whole situation, but again, I am incredibly disappointed by the whole experience.
If you choose to rent this place, I caution you of the mistakes that can be made and hope that you thoroughly check with Imran that your place is clean before you arrive and that he sends you the correct address of the Airbnb.
Some other things on the negative side that are much smaller problems as compared to the two big miscommunications - the kitchen is not very well stocked with what you need to cook meals / plates etc. The computer chair is broken and doesn't adjust height which was important for work from home. And the lightbulbs were dead in two of the lamps which is critical because the apartment did not have that much overhead lighting.