Weekly Musings: 9/23/22
Airbnb, Roosevelt Island
Some thoughts around a couple of experiences in the past weeks, accompanied by totally unrelated photos.
On Airbnb
My first week in NYC was rough.
I got absolutely rekt by Airbnb. I booked a long-term Airbnb, but my host ghosted me on the day of arrival, and I couldn’t check in. I had to scramble last minute to find a place to stay and ended up crashing at my friend’s place for the night.
The next day, I called the host numerous times, and they finally decided to pick up the phone in the afternoon. They told me to call someone else for the check-in instructions. 30-Second call, no apologies.
After I check in, I found the place to be a total catfish. The photos showed the unit to be well-lit, but in reality, it feels like it’s nighttime all day. The unit was situated on the backside of the building on the first floor, so it gets no natural light as it’s blocked in all directions by other buildings. The unit might as well didn’t have any windows. Combined with the fact the unit had terrible artificial lighting, we didn’t have any light. It felt like living in one of those early 20th-century old houses in a bad way. And this was just one of many issues.
I called up Airbnb and got ghosted by 6 different supports before finally being able to escalate my case to a supervisor. They were able to give me a full refund and a coupon valued at 20% of the listing price. But honestly, the coupon hardly helped since booking a long-term Airbnb last minute resulted in ballooning the cost by over 40%.
The entire situation was absolutely exhausting, and I felt completely helpless throughout the entire process.
I realized how powerless a guest is in these situations. But realistically, what is Airbnb going to do? Give you a new place? They know it’s more economical to refund and give guests coupons since last-minute bookings will cost Airbnb way more. I get it, but it shows how flawed these platforms and services are. I’ve always assumed these platforms protect the user. However, at the end of the day, Airbnb is just a middleman, a “broker”. They have minimum liability.
The entire experience made me realize how bad the tail-end risks associated with Airbnbs can be. If things don’t go well last minute, good luck. I guess hotels ain’t that bad after all. At least they have consumer protection and service guarantees. Going forward, I will definitely be much more cautious when using Airbnb, if at all…
Roosevelt Island
Roosevelt Island feels both so close yet so far from Manhattan. It’s geographically close, but there isn’t convenient public transit going in and out of the island. If you’re looking to leave the island and go to Manhattan through the subway, you’d have to detour deep inside Queens before you return back to Manhattan. Why wasn’t the subway line designed to be two ways, instead of one-way? Wouldn’t that make the land on Roosevelt much more desirable?
The island also feels the opposite of Manhattan - lots of greenery, a lower density of business, and a very suburbia feeling. There are a surprising amount of apartments and I’m not too sure where these residents get their daily necessities when there isn’t much on the island. You’d also need a car since public transit is inconvenient.
In addition to the space and greenery, the biggest benefit of the island is the view, being able to get unobstructed views of both Manhattan and Queens. Seems like most of the people who live on Roosevelt Island are older folk.
I don’t have much to conclude here; I just find the entire urban design of the island to be very bizarre and I wonder why it was designed this way. I wish it had better public transit, I think it’d be a great place to live if it did.
