First the good things. Carol is a lovely, friendly, responsive and communicative host. The apartment is relatively spacious, with comfortable if a bit worn furniture, with windows all around, terrific ocean views (!), views of the great sunset and greenery outside. The neighborhood is very nice and extremely well-located in Torrance’s historic Hollywood Riviera neighborhood, just across Palos Verdes Blvd. from Riviera Village’s bars, restaurants, shops and amenities. It’s also half a block away from Pacific Coast Highway, with a convenient laundromat a block away (and next to a bank where you can get quarters if you need them). The neighborhood is relatively quiet as well. The bed is quite comfortable, and there are plenty of pillows, sheets and towels; Carol provided clean ones for us every week (we were there for nearly a month). There are also beach towels, boogie boards and other beach toys if you’re there in the summer (and the beach is very close, only a couple of blocks away). There were a few minor glitches during our stay. The apartment, adjacent house and grounds have seen better days. The electricity in the apartment was partly out for a couple of days, necessitating a visit by a handyman to replace a circuit breaker and some wiring. The wi-fi internet is spotty, particularly if you’re trying to stream video; Carol blames it on proximity to “the peninsula,” but I think the service just winks out from time to time, necessitating power cycling your computer’s wi-fi connection. The hot water is pretty good, but if the neighbor downstairs flushes a toilet or runs the faucet, you’ll know it. The kitchen is small but well-appointed if you want to make coffee or toast, but you’re not going to want to make a full meal. (It’s got a big refrigerator, microwave and full stove, though, but no dishwasher or disposal). Also, there are no window screens at all, which wasn’t a problem for our mid-winter visit but might be an issue in the summer. There’s also no heat or AC in the apartment except for a portable heater (which caused the circuit breaker to trip) and a faux fireplace in the living room that blows warm air. The stairs up to the apartment were solid, but the wooden bannister and the lattice surrounding the upstairs porch are pretty rickety; we had some wind and rain during our stay, and the bottom portion of the lattice at the porch disintegrated. We alerted Carol and I presume she’ll replace it, but the rest of the woodwork looks pretty old, so you’ll want to be careful there. But whenever we alerted Carol to the issues in the place, she responded immediately, apologize profusely, and fixed what she could at the time. She even gave us a credit for our inconvenience, which was very generous.