I have stayed 28 days in Joao's place in Tijuca forest. The location is good if you have a car, as the good beaches from Barra to Grumari are 20-60 mins drive, yet you can go to the centre in 30-40 minutes and see animals and birds from the forest just from inside.
Sao Conrado beach was just 7 minutes drive, but it was always full of strong waves and also there were not many people there, someone managed to still my wallet with papers like ID and driving license in the last week of my stay.
However, the house interior and noise from the neighbors have completely disappointed me as well as the lack of proper support from the host.
The house itself is not bad, esp. its upper level, but the ground floor is in a need of a renovation completely. The kitchen looks sad, but even sadder is the shower and the bathroom on the ground floor. I became a bit depressive when I saw at first, as it was not on the photos, as well as the old bathtub before the house in the yard. The bathroom on the first floor looks normal, but there was no shower in it and the toilet was not very efficient, I would not recommend to use it a lot.
And the only bedroom is air-conditioned and the rest of the house is getting pretty hot after 10 am, even if you open the windows to the forest, as Joao recommends.
However, that did not always felt safe to me as I have once seen a reptile on the upper concrete ground that looked similar to some big black and yellow snake (but could be just some big Iguana as well). I have also seen a couple of iguanas regularly before the house and it always ran away, when it saw me, there were also monkeys and hummingbirds in the forest.
The bed and mattress were too extremely small for me (138x188) and I was not able to sleep there comfortably even alone. I have asked Joao to buy me a new bigger mattress, offering possible prolongation of the rent of 1-2 months, but he offered me to buy it myself with him investing just 400 reals and me leaving the mattress in the house, also he didn't want to prolong the rent for a normal long-term price, but wanted triple (!!!) price for the carnival week. That was not very pleasant and finally decided to leave.
He always seemed like a person, who is mainly interested in making the money out of it with minimal efforts...
The staircase from the parking lot to the house consists of over 40 steps and it was mentioned by the previous guest it was really unhealthy to carry provisions through it and brought me a lot of back pain. Actually, if I have read the last comment before coming here I would probably cancel the reservation, so think twice, if you are reading this.
Also, I have asked him to hire someone to carry my suitcases up and down during check-in and check-out and he didn't want to spend any minute of his time organizing that! However, I must admit, that he helped me himself personally carrying the heavier suitcase during the check-in and left me alone with it on the check-out and it would be better to find someone (to whom I was ready to pay) to do it.
Also, Joao registered a sim-card for me (as I understood that's a difficult matter in Brasil) as the normal internet stopped working before my arrival and hadn't functioned for the first week of my stay, however he knew nothing about the tariffs and I had to spend a lot of time to find it out myself without knowing Portuguese.
I have also asked him whether there was any groceries delivery or at least water delivery to the house, but he didn't assist me in finding that at all and was rather judging me saying, that I "did not want to carry anything". I asked him to recommend me a good fitness club and a massage and he gave me a link to some low-quality gym and super-expensive massage.
At the end of the month, I have there the normal fitness, massage for a reasonable price and it was all in the Fashion mall (just 10 minutes drive) and even the groceries delivery might be possible from Rio Sul. But I was not able to use most of the things as I have found them at the very end!! Unfortunately, although Brazilians are mostly open in friendly, most of them do not speak English at all and even if you manage to communicate they might not know what is happening around in their own city, area even the next store, which they work in. So the information is key here! I could have had such a nice time in Rio (and I have chosen that city, wanting to visit South America and yet have a comfort I get used to) if I knew where everything is situated and how it is organized in terms of delivery and got a normal big mattress to sleep! I would then prolong my trip for another month and have a comfortable time in Rio and Brazil. Instead, I was forced to carry heavy bags myself, going to the supermarkets every few days, having more and more back pain because of the lack of fitness and massage and now moved to Cabo Frio a completely disastrous place, turning my experience in Brazil into a total fail of an unreasonably high cost! And it could all be so nice and fine if Joao cared about guests and the house and not only his income from it!