Our stay with Carmen was great! The neighbourhood is as she describes: lots of homeless people and so on. But I value greatly that she points that fact out a couple of times. You really know what you're in for! You can't beat how close it is to downtown. We could walk and would be in Gastown really fast. Her apartment is an oasis. We really felt comfortable, there was everything there (e.g. In the kitchen) that you could imagine. It's very clean and checking in and out was super uncomplicated. Carmen gave me lots of information on the city.