There are several things that were missing from the description of the house that we wished we knew before booking:
1) There are two rental suites on the ground floor and one suite in the garage. The house wasn't really designed to be subdivided and there is very little insulation between the suites. So sound carries through into the Airbnb unit. With 6 other tenants in the house, there is always some noise coming through.
2) The house is not fire safe. We had an incident where one of the downstairs tenants had a fire in his suite. The upstairs of the house filled with smoke. There were no sprinklers or working smoke alarms (either in the downstairs or the upstairs). We were fortunately able to contact the tenant to deal with the issue before it became serious, but the upstairs stank of smoke for a week afterwards. It does highlight that more needs to be done to protect all tenants from a fire in the house.
3) The laundry is shared with the other tenants, which wasn't mentioned in the airbnb description, and the washer and dryer can be quite busy on weekends.
4) We had anticipated that there would be traffic noise from 1st Ave, as the house is right on that busy road. The house windows are not that well insulated from the sound and opening windows means that dust and pollution carry into the house. With the proximity to the busy street, the balcony and outdoor areas were not that useful.
5) The kitchen is pretty lacking in basic cooking supplies (i.e. no can opener, baking tray, etc). This would be fine for a short term stay, but given the one month minimum stay, it would be nice if the kitchen was better equipped.
6) One of the beds was broken when we arrived (it had a bunch of broken and missing slats). The host arranged to have the bed fixed, but it was still pretty uncomfortable.
On the plus side, the living area is very spacious, there is a nice desk for working, and the place was fairly clean.