***OVERALL*** Alice is a nice, sweet person, but I will not be returning to stay at her place. I stayed at Alice's place for over a month. It was in a good location, as well as cozy and warm. But the poor/inconsistent communications, bugs/spiders/flies/mosquitoes in the unit, and the constant monitoring of Alice of my use of the bathroom ventilation fans were a major negative and quite uncomfortable. By the end, I was looking to leave as quickly as I could. Alice lives on the main floor above the basement.
***PROS*** This is a basement unit, so no matter how warm it is outside, it is always cooler. And at night, it's very cool. However, having a heater definitely help keep the studio basement very warm at night. The bed is extremely comfortable and made for good sleeping. The location was pretty good. It's further away from downtown Seattle, but Discovery Park is 2-3 blocks away. It would be great to just walk out the door and be completely immersed by nature within 5 minutes. I enjoyed running/hiking and getting fresh air while looking at the views. While you are far from the city, there is a high-end supermarket 1 block down and over from the house, so you're never too far from stocking up on food.
***CONS*** Communications were not good. After receiving some emails from Alice when I booked the place weeks before, I did not receive anything comms from her directly after that. I emailed her, I used the AirBnb app to send messages, voicemails, text messages, etc. before checking in, but no response. Finally at ~130pm on the day I'm checking in, driving in my rental car from the airport to her place, Alice finally calls and gives me the check-in instructions. She said she lost her phone/got locked out, but there is no excuse to not check emails, review the AirBnb site for my requests. It didn't get better after I checked in. There were a few kitchen wares that I requested that the unit did not have, but after emails, AirBnb messages, text messages, voicemails, no response from her. After 2 rounds of comms, I just dropped trying to communicate with Alice. *** BUGS *** The other major issue I had with the unit was the volume of spiders, mosquitoes, bugs that I had to kill. One morning when I was laying in bed, I felt something on my leg under the blanket. I was still groggy, but put on my glasses and found this green bug crawling around. Nothing gets you up faster than a living animal crawling up your leg. As well, every AM, I would wake up and walk into spider webs that were made the night before... walking into the kitchen, turning on the light, going into the bathroom: spiderwebs across my legs and my face. I know it's the Pacific Northwest, but this is inside an apartment. *** MONITORING *** Because of the bug problem, I did not want to open my windows to allow in fresh air as a new swarm of bugs would come in (windows did not have any screens). As a result, I had to turn on the fan in the bathroom and kitchen after showering or cooking to air out the place. One time, I left the bathroom fan on after showering one afternoon. I went down to the market to get food, but left it on for a couple hours. Alice did not appreciate that and asked me to be more mindful of the planet and her electric bills. I agree 100% on being efficient/monitoring bills/being green, but also want to make sure cooking smells/bathroom odors/moisture are eliminated considering I can't open the windows because of the bugs. After that, every few days, Alice would be sending me messages/emails about making sure I turned off the fan. I wake up at 5am to take work calls, but she'd be up and knocking on my basement door at 530am reminding me to turn off the fan. The constant monitoring was excessive and not appreciated. While she was very clear about it in her listing, she also as a webcam setup at the basement door by the laundry room to monitor whoever is walking around that common area. Overall, the snooping/commenting were excessive. After her initial comments on the fan, I kept usage to a minimum and turn it off after 30 minutes of showering/cooking, but it was still too much for Alice. Finally, Alice had a new door installed; however, there was no weather guard under the door, so there's this big 2-inch gap at the bottom. I had to make a make-shift cover using door mats to cover the front and insider of the door gaps. Even still, I found spiders/bugs camped out in that gap after a couple days. *** Household items *** Not a huge deal, but I stayed for over a month, and she only supplied 1 roll of toilet paper. Can I spend $4 for a roll at the corner market? Yes, but staying at an AirBnb for over a month, you think Alice would supply 2-3 extra rolls under the sink. Same thing with kitchen sponge to do the dishes. Dishsoap was provided, but I had to go buy sponges to wash dishes.