Pros: The apartment was excellently situated at the core of the town, within walking distance to most of the town's attractions. The building was old but quaint, with giant wooden doors. The two bedrooms were spacious, there were even walk-in closets. The apartment was generally clean.
Cons: While co-host Francesca agreed to let us check-in early, she was about 20 mins late past our agreed upon time, so we had to wait a while in the winter cold.
Beds are one of the key features of accomodations, so we were disappointed that two "double beds" in this airbnb was actually 2 separate single beds pushed together. It was not comfortable to roll over the middle. I believe it is wrong to call these "double beds", and Airbnb should not allow it.
Poorly equipped kitchen. There was only 1 wine glass, no bowls, no salt or pepper, no oil or vinegar. Some plates were not clean. There were 2 pots, but no pans at all. Couldn't fry an egg.
Lack of supplies. There was a washing machine, but no laundry detergent. There was a Lavazza coffee pod machine, but no coffee pods. Shampoo and shower gel was provided, and the 2 bathrooms shared 3 toilet rolls.
Commercialized. The place was ran like a hotel. The actual apartment in the building seemed split into 4 units. Our unit used a hotel-like key card which cut off power when we took it out with us. This unfortunately cut off power to the apartment, so we could only resume our washing cycle and charging of laptop/camera batteries when we returned.
The "free on-street parking" listed was impossible to get despite us visiting in the low season. Streets were all full, and we even had to hunt for an empty paid blue lot. I imagine it would be even worse during summer.
All these resulted in the apartment not feeling like a home at all. Ironically there was a notice that we had to take out our own trash, despite the apartment having a high cleaning fee. It's not a big deal, but just saying that none of the 7 other Airbnbs we used in Italy made us do that.
During our stay, there were no messages from the hosts checking in on us. Also no messages from the hosts on the last day as we checked out with our trash.
In summary, we would not return to this apartment if we ever visited Catania again.