Patrick's place was very cool place, very modern industrial which we liked. It has pretty views of the water out the windows, although the trains run right outside the loft that take some getting use to. Overall it was pretty clean, the cleaners had left behind a lot of clean linens and towels in the drier. Before I put my socks on, I had to give a good couple of brushes of my hand to knock the lint/dust off of my feet. There are some cool places that are very walkable that my wife and I went to like: Scandalicious, The Pie Shoppe, JJ Beane, and Parallel 49 was awesome. Also, the Hive Print Co. (I think that's what it was called) was fun to check out and talk to the owners and listen to some of the history of East Van and the pride of their neighborhood.
We went all over the city by foot and bus, we never felt "unsafe or threatened" but we definitely felt "uncomfortable" a few times in East Vancouver while on the bus or walking around at night due to some of the homelessness and such in certain parts of the area. For example, my wife and I took the bus home to Patrick's Airbnb one particular night (probably around 9:00 PM) and the bus was pretty full. My wife sat in an isle seat next to an older Chinese man who seemed very intoxicated to the point he had urinated on himself. As he stood in preparation to exit the bus for his stop, he scooted in front of my wife and nearly lost his balance. I put my arm out near his lower back to keep him from plopping on her lap in his urine soaked jeans. Although this was the worst experience we had in East Van in terms of the people there in public transportation and walking around, it was not an uncommon scene. I think if we had rented a car (which we didn't consider) we'd have had a different experience of east Vancouver.
Some of the highlights were: kayaking in Deep Cove at Deep Cove Kayak Centre, the Capilano Suspension Bridge Park was beautiful. Running in Stanley park was a great way to get exercise and see some pretty views of the city. There were lots of very good places we ate in the city and used recommendations from friends and Yelp and locals in a daily basis.
Patrick is very fast to respond to texts and Airbnb messages. His blog is a good place to refer to for recs and is very organized for Airbnb instructions such as check in and check out.