The place itself was nice, had basic necessities covered, and Cheesman Park is a great neighborhood. The hosts were quick to respond when there was a plumbing issue and when the lock broke on the front door.
A few things of note:
• Most of the building is airbnb guests, so there isn’t much accountability involved if other guests aren’t mindful of their surroundings. The guests that stayed in the unit above had a dog that barked for hours on end when they first moved in. The House Rules on this listing originally stated "Pets may not bark habitually or be a nuisance to any other residents in the building. If there is a complaint from another resident regarding your pet, your reservation will be cancelled and you will not receive a refund." But when I raised concerns about the barking to the host, this rule was not enforced. While the barking fortunately only ended up being an issue a handful times throughout the month, these guests were also really heavy-footed when walking around, it sounded like furniture was being moved around and dragged along the floor on a daily basis, and I was regularly startled by thuds and stomping from upstairs. These noises were a constant throughout my month-long stay, woke me up throughout the night and early in the morning, and went way beyond what you’d assume the “potential for noise from other residents in the building” mentioned in the listing would entail. I suggested that the hosts put runners down upstairs to drown the noise a bit and while the hosts were receptive to this and also offered a noise machine and ear plugs and supposedly spoke with the other guests a few times, for some reason they left it up to the guests to put the runners down themselves. And though a noise machine can help drown out some of the typical old building creaky sounds, it did not do anything to mitigate the sound or reverberation of heavy footsteps, banging, and all of the other excessive noises that came from upstairs. While the hosts offered for me to terminate my stay early, at that point I would’ve had to pay for short-term rental rates if I were to go anywhere else and this just wasn’t a reasonable financial option. It was really unfortunate that what would’ve been a mostly otherwise nice stay was disrupted so much by other guests not being held to the rules that everyone in the building has to agree to when staying there.
• The radiators are very loud. The listing mentioned the “popping/cracking sounds,” but this noise was quite annoying and louder than anticipated based on the description, and at least during my winter stay, the noise happened pretty regularly. People on the other end of my work calls could hear the sounds and it was very disruptive. This probably would’ve been a lot less frustrating if it hadn’t been for the noises from the neighbors as well.
• While the hosts responded promptly when things needed to be addressed, communication around when to expect them was poor despite my requests for clarity on when they were coming by. On two occasions, one of the hosts showed up while I was in the middle of work calls.
• There's no peep hole on the door. With this unit being a first floor walk-up without any security features, this is a concern and left me in a vulnerable position when an unhoused person knocking on the door late at night during my stay.