We stayed at Flavia’s place for 5 nights with a one-year-old. There were pros and cons to Flavia’s place:
Pros
1. Location: Close to Garbatella metro station, and in a residential neighborhood, instead of a touristy place. You get to see everyday life of people of Rome.
2. Responsive: Flavia was very responsive, and even replaced the microwave oven when we told her it’s not working. But it was not always resolving the issues. See the cons.
3. Nice large balcony with a view, and lots of sun. See the cons though.
Cons
1. The place is too small. It’s basically just a small kitchen, and a small bedroom with slanted roof. The bed is a pull-out sofa, and stowing it away is a chore, so you end up leaving it open, which covers most of the room. There were no place to sit and relax, other than the bed. Which gets me to the next cons.
2. Squeaky furniture. Both the bed and the bar chairs in the kitchen were quite squeaky. We had a one-year-old, and when he was asleep, we had to use noise machine, and be extra careful to make minimal squeaks. Given that the place is small, and there is no other place to relax, this was pretty frustrating. You may ask why not use the terrace?
3. Not so usable terrace. Although the terrace is large, and you have an expansive view, it has its problems. In the evenings, there were mosquitoes around, and we learned quickly it’s best to be avoided during that time. During the day, it is teeming with tiny red bugs (clover mites), that are seemingly not harmful, but not pleasant anyways. They are everywhere on the balcony, and we were afraid they might get into our baby’s body, or into our belongings. Therefore we tried to avoid the terrace as much as possible, which was a shame.
4. Not fully stacked with essentials. When we checked in, I couldn’t find hand soap, shampoo, or garbage bags, and when I asked Flavia, she told me to look for them in specific places, which was not successful (imagine you just arrived in a country with a language and products you are. It familiar with, and you try to find a product among a heap of cleaning products. Not so easy!). When I told her I didn’t find them, she sent me locations of places to go buy them. I asked her if she can deliver them the day after, but I got the same answer again. We had just arrived from a long flight with a baby, and jet lag, so the last thing we wanted to do was to try to find essentials in the house or buy them. It would have gone a long way if she had properly stacked the place with essentials before our arrival.