The insiders say never to rent from AirBnB if the property isn't at least 4.8 stars. These days those ranking systems don't truly start from 0 or 1. The statistically significant range is much smaller. I don't personally know have the stats chops to do it, but I'm sure determining that range can be done.
The important thing is to actually read the reviews. A five-star place that's located 2 blocks away from a railroad crossing that's active all night won't yield a five-star experience, but the host can hardly be expected to mention that.
The last AirBnB I rented was a five-star house where the host had installed one of those Nest smoke detectors with the motion-sensing night light directly above the bed. He still got a five-star rating, but I went well out of my way to mention the night light in my review.
Why 5 if your sleep was miserable (I assume)? Host has full control over that and should be held responsible if made a poor choice which affects guests. You're polite to host, but not polite to future guests.
It was easy enough to fix by taping a washcloth loosely over the sensor, and obviously my opinion regarding it being a terrible idea isn't universally shared, or he wouldn't have installed it there in the first place. So I didn't feel good about dropping a score near 100% to one near 80% just for that one thing.
There was also a massive foam rubber pad on the mattress that made the first night a rough one... but again, some people who are wrong prefer those, and again, it was easy enough to remove. Or at least, it would've been if my partner hadn't already been asleep on it when I came to bed. The resulting tossing and turning was what made the motion-sensing night light a problem.
Basically I didn't want to go full Karen on the landlord because everything else about the house was comfortable and thoughtful. I felt that a four-star rating would have been projecting a combination of my personal preferences and comically-bad luck on his other potential renters.
