I stayed at Trish's place for over a month. It would be a great spot for many, but also has a few quirks that some may wish to know about!
The overview:
- It's a second floor bedroom inside a house with shared living areas (bathroom, kitchen, laundry facilities). The owner rents out all three bedrooms on AirBNB and occasionally allows guests to sleep on a futon in the living room.
- Trish (the owner) lives in a smaller building in the backyard, so is around to answer any questions, etc. She also shares the kitchen.
The pros:
- You really can't beat the location. It's a block away from all the life and energy on Queen St West. The buses on Bathurst and streetcar on Queens runs every 5-10 mins, so super easy to get around town.
- The kitchen is well stocked and set-up! It has a gas stove and all sorts of cooking gear. Trish kindly keeps the kitchen stocked with staples like eggs, yogurt, and bread for you to use, and she doesn't mind if you use a glug of oil or some spices.
- She has a backyard which I didn't get a chance to take advantage of (given it was still winter), but would be lovely to sit it when warmer.
- The owner is friendly and is a wealth of knowledge for great places to eat and things to see in Toronto. She also would sometimes make delicious baked goods to share with guests.
The quirks:
- This is an 19th century house, so definitely a bit quirky and creaky.
- There is one shared bathroom with an old-school bathtub (no shower) for the entire house. The sink in the bathroom only had cold water (no hot) when I stayed with Trish.
- My room was decently sized with a desk and lots of closet space. It didn't have any curtains, so I used a towel to block light at night.
- The fridge was often full given 3-6 guests + Trish were sharing. It was sometimes tricky to find any shelf space for groceries and ditto for the freezer. You sometimes also needed to just throw out moldy food as people would not necessarily empty the fridge before they checked out.
- There is free laundry on site. But it's in a dark basement with pretty impressive cobwebs.
- The other guests generally were friendly, but it's very much all shared spaces. So you would get dishes left in the sink or people taking a bath when you needed the washroom. It's definitely workable, but your experience could be impacted (for better or worse) by other guests.