Zev's house is a great find. It's neat and clean and incredibly conveniently located. I stayed for seven weeks while doing a course in downtown San Francisco.
The house has great amenities - I found the washer, dryer and dishwasher particularly convenient. There's a decent amount of fridge and cupboard space as well as all the cooking equipment you might need. The wifi works well. Bed and linen are good. The various labels and systems worked well for me and my housemates while I was there.
West Oakland BART is a five minute walk and all but one of the five BART lines stop there.
West Oakland definitely has rough edges, but has so much more spirit than some anodyne San Francisco suburbs. I felt very comfortable there, and had good interactions with everyone I met. Having said that, I can see how some people might feel vulnerable walking back from the BART at night.
All in all I loved staying there and found it was a great place to explore the bay from.