Shirley is super nice and really wants her guests to enjoy their stay. She was very helpful when we were figuring out some logistics for our trip and very quick to respond to communications. Her place is beautiful and spotless.
Some AirBnBs are full time AirBnBs and some are places the host lives on a daily basis. This is one for which Shirley lives in and that led to some awkwardness. She rents this place either for one person with her present or for two and she isn’t there. We did the later not really knowing she actually lives there. The awkwardness for me was mostly the kitchen - the majority of cabinets were locked up and there was no access to pots or pans to cook a meal. The listing said it was a full kitchen with such access so not being able to cook was a bummer. I’ve noticed the host changed things based on past feedback so maybe she’ll change this too- either update the listing or make the kitchen more available. You can only use one small shelf in the refrigerator as the rest of the shelves are filled with her food you cannot touch.
For my husband, he said it was just creepy being in a place that someone so obviously lives in- personal pictures, food, etc.
The location is not super close to anything, per se, but super close to public transit so it was easy to get to all the places we wanted to see. Though if you go to a night baseball game, I recommend you walk home or Uber as the train wasn’t running that late and we were stuck on late, over stuffed buses with some sketchy happenings for 1.5 hours.
As a head up - don’t break any of the house rules! You will get caught. We stayed for 7 night and the last two nights our 30 year old son surprised us by flying to San Fran to see us. After 1.5 years of COVID isolation it was really good to see him and we let him sleep on the couch. I suspect there are cameras around, as there are in many AirBnBs nowadays, and we were charged $200 for letting him stay. Fair enough, honestly, happy to pay and would have had I known in advance or been thinking about what to do clearly on day 5 of vacation when he showed up.
Speaking of rules - there are more than usual here - you must take your shoes off when you enter the place, you can’t use the dishwasher, you can only do laundry before 4. I mean, there’s understandable reasons for all this, but it felt pretty restrictive.
Anyway, the beds are comfy, the place is beautiful, Shirley was great and the location is good. So, if you’re fine with not cooking and some minor inconvenient rules, defiantly stay here.