Some background:
My partner and I stayed here for 6 months. We generally enjoyed our stay here very much, and would recommend it!
Basic description:
This space is the second floor of a home (kind of a loft space with slanted walls) that has been converted into an apartment. It's all roughly one room, but there are some separate spaces: a bedroom, a general room, a shower space, and a toilet/sink space. The toilet area has a shower curtain in front of it. There is also a nice porch, which has nice views of the sunset over San Jose. The space includes a mini-refrigerator (and we left a toaster and coffee maker too), so you can keep a sort-of kitchenette upstairs if you so desire. Downstairs there is a real kitchen that is shared with other renters in the home—it has a stove/oven, a full fridge, microwave, toaster, etc. There are three rented bedrooms on the first floor, so there will be other folks coming and going—we found them friendly! The basement has laundry (free) and some office space. The owner (Ilan) lives in a separate building located behind the house you'll be staying in. There is street parking all around the house, shouldn't be a problem.
Nearby:
Not a fancy neighborhood at all, but we enjoyed exploring it! There's a Vietnamese grocery store right down the street, and a pho restaurant. I ran through a park nearby. This place is really centrally located in the San Jose area. Near a convenient freeway.
Pros:
- Ilan is very nice and responsive! Helped us with whatever we needed. He went out of his way to invite us to a BBQ, offer us his bikes to ride, etc.
- Price is reasonable, I think, given the location
- Private space upstairs, which is comfortable, spacious & quiet.
- Wifi generally worked well
- Others in the house were friendly
- Sunset dinners on the porch
- Lots of windows and light
- A/C
Cons:
- The kitchen downstairs is kinda grimy.
- Not much community in the house. Though friendly, the others kinda keep to themselves
- no heating