I loved my 3-night visit to Minneapolis and made the 40-minute walk from Christine's place into the downtown and back each day for a conference. Pluses: The big-old house was quiet and dark at night; the mattress was okay, and with the chair cushion to supplement the pillow and the fan blowing on me constantly all through the stifling night and into the hot mornings on the top floor, I was able to get work done using the serviceable internet with my laptop and get a fairly decent sleep. Seemed like every room had someone temporary or long-term, and the few people I met, including Christine, were polite. Cats are adorable but the black one is very loudly demanding of attention. Christine responded to my questions before my arrival in-depth and promptly. Minuses: The whole house looks rather shabby and "lived in" and needing of a cleaning, order, and of permanent repairs (pipes with temporary fixes, broken window screen, broken bath fan, holes in walls, very few outlets, remains of former window treatments with now bare windows, house goods piled up on surfaces because of lack of storage areas, cluttered and old and inadequate kitchen with dirty dishes 24/7. ) My room was very spare, but other parts of the house were very cluttered. I decided to make the best of it, find my own threadbare towels and the toilet paper, bring shower soap to the sinks that lacked soap, move my bed away from the window with the broken screen and lack of curtains, sweep my bedroom, move dirty pots to rinse and fill my water bottle, and stay out of the common areas. A little bit of TLC could go a very long way without much expense. When you have a lot of very old furnishings and little storage, keeping things in order helps a lot.