sue Whare

Review of New York Habitat

We booked an apartment in Brooklyn for 6 nights re...

We booked an apartment in Brooklyn for 6 nights recently. The 'splurb' on the apartment indicated that it was an apartment in which the owner lived, but we thought it would be good to meet a local. We were told further, from reviews, that the place was rather cluttered and old. One of the reviews also indicated that it was not particularly clean. The replies to the reviews by the owner seemed quite reasonable on both accounts and thus we booked it. The price was inexpensive by NYC standards.

When we arrived, we were taken aback at the clutter. We had 1 small drawer to store all our belongings (better to continue living out of a suitcase), the wardrobe was filled with the lady's belongings, and the floor thereof was filled with blankets etc. The sheets on the bed were extremely old and even though it was the middle of summer and very hot and humid, were flannelette sheets. The shared bathroom had so many bottles etc everywhere with absolutely not one inch of space to put any of our things. The toilet refill function was faulty, and we were shown how to turn the water system off at the wall and then turn it on again, which then filled up the cistern. The kitchen, which we were planning to use, was equally cluttered but was also filled with fruitfly everywhere. The apartment would definitely not meet the health standards in Australia.
Fortunately the owner was a lovely lady and as she also had a cat and my husband is allergic to some cats, we let her know that we could not stay. She kindly declined to take any payment (even though we did not spend a night there)

I contacted New York Habitat, letting them know the state of the place and asking for my administration fee to be returned, seeing that we did not make use of the apartment and giving them the full story of our experience. They stated that the place is fine by their estimation, explaining that the low cost indicated the quality of the place. They have declined to do so, but instead offered us a 30% reduction in the administration fee when we book through them again.
However once bitten, twice shy!

I certainly could not recommend the organisation. In saying that, their staff member, Christophe, was very pleasant and helpful.