Mike’s place was a great launching place for my first month in the Bay Area. Location-wise, it was within short walking distance to everything I needed to feel comfortable and at home in Oakland—about a 10-minute walk or less to Trader Joe’s (groceries), Walgreens (pharmacy), the transbay bus to SF, the friendly neighborhood laundromat, cafes and restaurants and the beautiful Lake Merritt. It really is an excellent jumping off point to getting to know the best of walkable Oakland. If you don’t have a car, this is the area to live in. It has been slightly upgraded since the photos that were posted when I rented so, for example, the TV is larger and wall-mounted and there’s now a breakfast table and a desk in the space which REALLY came in handy for remote working days. It also feels secure. There are four locks to enter the space in total including a metal screen door that allows you to keep the the door propped open for air flow without worrying about security. Also, the neighbors were friendly and Mike was a responsive communicator.
The downsides are that it’s a little dim because it only has one window, which faces a bamboo thicket ( I loved the sound of the bamboo when the wind blew, though). Also, there’s no a/c, which is pretty typical of older builds in the Bay Area. It endures constant white noise of cars driving by due to its proximity to the highway, which was a real challenge for me the first few days because I arrived during a heat wave and always needed a door or window open for air flow. And while the bed is a really thick multi-layered pallet of very soft memory foam, it’s on a wooden plank, so that hard feeling beneath the softness took some getting used to. Lastly, the walls are thin, so you’ll have to watch your noise level so as not to disturb neighbors and vice versa.
All in all, though, I grew to feel at home in the space and I will always remember it fondly. I would stay here again and recommend to anyone who is not super noise sensitive.