Shaw & Vicki's place was fantastic!
Location - 5/5. Great location in a mostly white-collared (i.e., Silicon Valley tech) middle-class family-oriented neighborhood. About a 10 min walk away from a shopping plaza with a Ralphs supermarket, several eateries, and a nice open park with a community public library. Close to the 101 & 237 freeways. We needed a place near Cupertino so it was a short 15 min drive away. Also, I would like to note that this place is a middle unit townhouse, which means that it shares two walls with the homes on either side and is directly across from the front of other townhomes across the walkway. During our 3 night stay there we didn't hear any noises at all from the neighbors....so either they are all very quiet or the walls are not super thin. Either way it was great because we have some light sleepers in our group.
Check-in/check-out & Communication - 5/5. Vicki provided very clear instructions for check-in/check-out as well as listed the various necessities such as wifi, trash schedule, etc. Very smooth and easy process, and Vicki is very fast to respond to messages.
House Cleanliness & Amenities - 5/5. The house is very well kept and feels new. They did a great job at making it feel like staying at a hotel, with travel-sized shampoo/body lotion/soap provided and very nice bed linens and towels (the cleaners even fold the towels and toilet paper in a fancy way like they do hotels). The complimentary coffee was a really nice touch - a Keurig Machine that was well stocked with various coffee pod options. WiFi was adequate, and there were two TVs in the common areas, one with cable and the other with access to the owners' Netflix account....though I didn't verify since we didn't watch any TV during our stay there. They even had a printer if you need to have something printed out. Rooms are as advertised, which was a perfect size for our party of 4 adults and 2 kids. You can potentially fit 1 or 2 more people if you choose to have them sleep on the two sofas. I stayed in the master bedroom...king size bed was very comfortable. Shower was strong with almost immediate hot water. Two very minor things were that 1) while the central HVAC works - we turned on the heater at night - the function to change the thermostat temperature was broken. Luckily the temp was set to 70 F. And 2) we did notice that there were ants on the master bathroom counter. It wasn't an infestation by any means...we would see maybe 10 or so ants at any given time but couldn't find a trail to see where they were coming from. Essentially these two things were very very minor inconveniences, if you even can call it that.
Price/Value - 4/5. This is the only area that I didn't give 5 stars. Mostly because of the additional fees tacked on, such as Airbnb fees, occupancy taxes and cleaning fees. In total, these additional fees amounted to about 2/3 of the total nightly rate for the stay...so it definitely adds up. However the other way I looked at it was that if I booked two hotel rooms in that area (there are several Marriott and Hyatt chains), it would've been roughly around the same price. With this house you get more space with the common areas and more privacy.
All in all, I would definitely stay here again if we ever need to make another trip to the Bay Area.