We really enjoyed our 9 nights at Emily's house. Top positives:
- Parking! The gate is easy enough to operate (and break as I did! Sorry again!) just navigate around the cracks and holes in the concrete :) I managed to park a Dodge Charger on the drive and they are long and wide!
- Air conditioning - Works well. The bedroom gets VERY hot during the day and so I found the bedroom air con needed a couple of hours to cool the room down before bed. Downstairs isn't so bad :)
- Well equipped. Has everything you need in the kitchen. Hand soap, washing up soap, shampoo and conditioner and towels.
- Near major motorways such as the 405 and 710 which will take you into DTLA and south to the i5 to San Diego. Very little traffic in the surrounding area even in rush hour.
- Near all major shops. Around 10 minutes to a couple of walmart superstores, costcos, targets and CVS. Not far from Disney either, not that we went. Within 30 minutes from 2 outlet shopping malls, The outlets at orange and Citadel. 30 minutes to Newport beach for Whale watching and the ferry to Catalina Island. 2 hours from San Diego.
You absolutely will need a car to stay here to explore LA. It was a good 40 minutes to the Observatory in no traffic, an hour to Santa Monica etc. The public transport is not as good in Long Beach.
The living room is well set up with Fire sticks and nice big TV, plenty of board games etc however we found the sofa bed to be seriously uncomfortable to sit on for long. I certainly would not like to sleep on it!
The shower temperature is also a bit erratic. One minute it will be nice and warm and the next, freezing cold (it never scoulded me). I have told Emily about this issue so hopefully she can look into it.
I found the communication from Emily to be slow (via the airbnb platform as we could not text her US mobile number). Sometimes you would get a reply fairly quickly, sometimes 2/3 days and sometimes she would just not reply until you send her another message. I know she probably works hard too so I feel harsh saying this but needs to be said. As long as you don't need local knowledge either in the lead up to or dont have any urgent issues there, not really a problem.
All in all a very nice stay in a lovely quiet area with everything you need for a pleasant stay.