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Geraldine Merola
Geraldine Merola, Accomplished traveler

1726 Elmwood Ave., Niagara, NY is NOT the Airbnb you take your family to relax on vacation! I have seen combat videos from Kandahar that were in better neighborhoods. The house was listed as “excellent” and I couldn’t get my husband and children to leave the car. There were burned out buildings and boarded up houses all along the street and the only indication that anyone lived in this neighborhood were the blue recycling bins randomly scattered about. I think they might roll the sidewalks up at night to stop them from being stolen! Now, I have an adventurous personality and out of curiosity, I entered the residence with a flashlight because I couldn’t see the keypad on the doors- there was no hallway light. Good news was there was power and heat although the derelict furnace that had been replaced was sitting in the downstairs hallway. The living area was cleaned, but really shabby and not in any kind of a “shabby chic” way. The spray painted clawfoot tub installed crookedly on the rotted sloping floor was the bathroom. The rest of it was furnished like a college student’s apartment, mismatched single curtain panels stretched across the painted shut windows and old mattresses on metal bed frames and a slouchy futon. We immediately left and contacted ”Rosie” to tell her we were not staying the night! I could tell she’d had this conversation before. Her very best defense was that “many people” had stayed there and had never had a problem in this neighborhood and it was my choice to leave and she was not giving me my money back. Of course she wasn’t, I’m sure it was my $240 she spent to furnish the place! I looked up the address on Trulia and she bought that dump for $15k just recently and since May of this year there have been 6 assaults, 5 shootings and a robbery in that very same blighted neighborhood! (I should have looked for blood stains on the floor.) That’s right- she bought a whole duplex for $15,000! This was my first and my very last Airbnb experience! Never again.

About the Author

Studied Developmental Biology at Purdue UniversityGraduated 1989
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