• Erlinda offers a cheap, clean room and lockable door a 15-minute walk from Greenlake and a 35-minute walk from Northgate Mall. However, there are some eccentricities you’ll need to deal with while staying here that lead me to not recommend this place for long-term stays unless the location is very important to you. For context, I stayed for just under 30 days. •
• You will be sharing this house with a lot of people. There were at least 9 people living in the house other than me when I was staying there and two more had moved in during my last few days. I’m not sure what the max capacity is as Erlinda would not tell me how many people were staying or how many rooms she lets. Unfortunately, this means you will need to lock your door and not leave things outside your room. I had my earbuds stolen when I left them in the kitchen for a few hours. •
•The kitchen itself is the cleanest part of the house and is where Erlinda spends most of her time once she’s awake. She takes a lot of pride in her kitchen and cooking and will offer a lot of advice on your own cooking. This is useful when you’re still figuring out where everything is but can become irritating. Of everyone in the house I was the only one other than Erlinda who regularly cooked and I got the sense that she was not used to sharing the kitchen. I found it easier to get my cooking done in the mornings before Erlinda was awake.•
•Though she keeps the kitchen very clean, as Erlinda does not use the dining table she does not take as good care of it, and I noticed mold growing on its leather cover. In addition, though Erlinda does provide two frying pans and a number of larger pots and pans, she does not provide salt, pepper, cooking oil, or other essential cooking ingredients, despite advertising their availability in the listing at the time of this review. There are two sets of shakers on the table that she said were merely decorative. I did refill one set with salt and pepper I bought, so there might still be some available. •
•In my room I noticed a plate and two glasses. I asked Erlinda about them and she said they were the dishes I was to use. No bowls, mugs etc. are provided unless you specifically ask for them. I asked one of the other tenants in the house about this and was told that everyone just scavenges in the dishwasher for dishes that they need. Later, I ended up finding both my glasses shattered in the dishwasher. Erlinda told me this was because I placed them in the dishwasher too forcefully. I think it’s because 10+ people have to constantly scavenge any time they want a dish other than their single plate. •
• Unfortunately, the bathroom is not kept to nearly as high standards as the kitchen. Smelly, with no towel (to be fair there was one full of holes hung up when I first arrived, but it was removed a few days later) and no toilet paper. There are mysterious brown spots on the bathroom’s white rug. Erlinda will give you a roll of toilet paper when you arrive and expects you to carry it into the bathroom each time you use it. If you leave the toilet paper in the bathroom, she will remove it. I ended up hiding my roll under the sink. The shower is extremely low pressure and takes a while to heat up, though it will stay at a comfortable temperature once warm. The water pressure was enough of an issue for me that I ended up showering at the gym. •
• Erlinda stays up until two or three A.M. each night; she generally keeps quiet, but woke me up twice when she let her dogs out in the early A.M. One of them is a real yapper. When she enters the kitchen around noon she will stay there for most of the rest of the day and will play electronic music until evening, when she will switch to a less frenetic playlist, usually meditation music or movie scores. •
• Erlinda has two modern laundry machines in her house, but she wants her guests to use two old coin-operated machines she has set up in her front yard. •
• These are most of the eccentricities you will have to deal with if you decide to stay at Erlinda’s. They shouldn’t be a big deal if you are only staying for a few days, don’t cook, and/or only come home to sleep. I personally work from home and regularly cook so I did not find this place to be a good fit, but overall it's pretty cheap for the location and the room was clean so I'm sure it will work for a lot of people. •