Pros
- Spacious room
The queen size bed was spacious and comfortable. It was small but also had a desk and chairs.
- Affordable price
Obviously the price is a big plus of this house.
- Quick response
When there was no shampoo/body wash or cooking ingredients (salt, pepper, cooking oil), Mike bought it right away. He also quickly gave pesticides when ants and cockroaches appeared. He provided what I needed right away except for roommate issues and regular cleaning in the house.
- Long-term stay
Because of the advantage of being able to stay for a long time, most of the other roommates also basically stayed for a month or more.
Cons
- Inconvenience of transportation
This is a story for people who do not have a car. It's a 20-minute walk to the subway, so you'll have to take a bike or bus. If you use public transport, you will often have to transfer. Fortunately, there are buses going down to downtown nearby.
- Lack of amenities
There is no washing machine in this house, but the nearest coin laundry is far away (the nearest laundromat is currently closed, so you have to walk about 15 minutes). There is a CVS nearby, but there is no market where you can buy fresh food. There is a Walmart 20 minutes away but there is no public transport connection.
- Smell
People also live underground. As soon as they cook, you can smell it. So for several months the smell of fish continued. After that, I occasionally had to smell marijuana. This room is located right in front of the kitchen, so when your roommates are cooking, the smell comes in through the crevice under the door.
- Noise
Since the room was located in front of the kitchen and dinner table, I could hear conversations and cooking sounds very well. The location of the house is also right in front of the crossroads, so there is a lot of traffic. Fire trucks, police cars, and motorbikes make loud noises even in the middle of the night, so I had to sleep with earplugs before I got used to it for a while.
- No cleaning regularly
Mike doesn't hire a cleaner and he cleans parts of the house on an irregular basis. So, from the front door, the stairs, the kitchen, and the floor of the dinner table do not look very clean. There is no vacuum cleaner in the house. Bath mats and towels were replaced every two months, but the toilet trash cans were emptied frequently.
- Strange Roommate
There are 6 rooms and about 6 people live here. An old man who has lived in this house the longest behaved arrogantly like the owner of the house. He acted obsessively and monitored people for washing dishes and using the refrigerator, just like the kitchen manager. He swears at me because I tell him that we share a space and that he should respect others. While living in this house, I felt unsafe because of this man. I tried talking to Mike about his compulsive behavior, but he didn't help much. So in the end, I rarely buy new groceries or cook. I would like to encourage people to reconsider staying here because of the fact that he seems likely to continue living here. Because if you enjoy cooking, you will not be able to avoid stressful situations from him.