We had a pleasant stay at Melissa's place. Melissa was responsive and very accommodating (she offered us both an early check-in and a late check-out to accommodate our flight arrival and departure times). The self check-in process was seamless and the location (right around the corner from the H-Street corridor) was excellent. Tons of restaurants, coffee shops, grocery stores, and public transportation in the area.
However, we felt as though the listing wasn't sufficiently clear about the unit -- it's a basement apartment underneath a home that is occupied. This bit was clear from the listing. While there is a private entrance to the unit, once inside, though, the unit and the home are separated by a curtain at the bottom of a staircase that leads from the main house to the basement (this curtain and staircase do not appear in any of the images provided in the listing, nor were they described elsewhere in the listing). At the top of the staircase, there is a door without a lock. The main house residents may have been able to lock this door on their side, but we had no ability to lock this door on our side. On one occasion during our stay, a resident of the main house opened this door and entered the staircase to grab something from a storage shelf lining the staircase -- we were only separated from this person by a curtain. In honesty, we had a difficult time sleeping knowing that we did not have full security in the unit (the bedroom door did not have a lock). If we had been aware of this set up, we would have sought alternative accommodations.