The house is an old-fashioned back-garden house that has an entrance on a path leading from Mt Auburn Street, so there is no street noise. I stayed in the basement apartment of their house, which has its own entrance on the rear of the house, with steps down. There were 2 rooms sharing 1 bathroom and kitchen. The bed was large, everything was clean and neat. One problem is that the Wifi did not work at first but this seemed to be the fault of the Internet service provider and it was resolved later on the 2nd day. The location is the edge of the Harvard Square area, almost halfway to Central Square, which is frankly an excellent location in my opinion, but about a 10 minute walk from the Harvard Square MBTA station. There is a bus stop in front of the house, and in retrospect (for future reference) it would have made more sense to use the route 1 bus to connect to the Red Line in Central Square instead of walking. I also made use of two Hubway (bike-share) stations within a 10 minute walk of the place. I did not see any location to lock a bicycle securely at night, although several people (neighbors possibly?) used a corner of the back garden to store their bicycles during the evening.
The hosts were very kind. The couple live in the house and are very welcoming. They even helped me get my laundry done while I was out and around town. I did not use the kitchen as I spent almost the entire time away from the house, apart from sleeping, and the location is near a very large number of restaurants and bars anyway.