We had a great stay at Marcelo’s place, which is beautifully placed on the hill side with a great view over the city. Marcelo is very friendly and knowledgeable and you quickly feel at home. He is very happy to give advice on everything (best tip: tapiocas at cafo do alto!).
We were 6 people staying there which worked fine, but more than that would be very tight living.
The location is off the beaten track and gives you an authentic and more local experience of Rio, which we loved. However, there is a favela close by, and being in a group with five Scandinavian girls, they felt a little unsafe about this when walking on to the street (and at night we only took taxi/uber to and from the place). Whether or not it was just us being silly I don’t know. I will say that we didn’t actually see anything to make us feel unsafe, and we felt very safe when we were in the house. And as mentioned, we loved getting to stay somewhere else than the normal touristy beaches.
A great place, and would definitely consider staying there again!