We prefer to stay in places where we do not share space with the hosts. Helen's place worked out perfect.
We easily found Helen's house which lay in a very quiet, secluded neighborhood yet less than a mile from the center of Rotorua (restaurants, shops, supermarket, movies, etc.) Helen was there to greet us and get us squared away. She provided a list of all the amenities and also provided a whole booklet full of brochures for local attractions.
We had the entire bottom floor to ourselves ... with tons of room for three people. The rooms were all decorated nicely and the beds were real comfortable. We had a safe place to park our car, and we even used the backyard barbecue to cook some steaks!
We had been traveling for 5 days so we used the washer and dryer to get all our garments cleaned.
We highly recommend Helen's place. If we were to come to Rotorua again I am sure we would try to stay there.