POSITIVE aspects:
The house is perfectly located. It's very close to Valletta's city center, everything is walking distance and also close to the main entry point of the city where one can find the bus terminals to reach anywhere in Malta.
A big plus for being located in a flat street. After a long walking day, not having to climb to reach the studio was great.
The studio is very luminous. It has great views over the Hastings Gardens from the dedicated working space of the place. Marvelous sunsets/sunrises.
The house is fully equipped (In my view it was missing a hair dryer, a towel hanger in the bathroom and a dish drainer, but I managed without those it's just a remark). Communication was never a problem. I had the chance to meet Pierre in person and he seemed a very nice and helpful person. I am thankful as well for having had an extra hour to check-out. The AC works as a heater as well, in case needed during winter time.
NEGATIVE aspects:
There is a bar nearby, which meant that music was loud at least two nights. The acoustic isolation is not fantastic as it's an old building.
The house was not perfectly cleaned. The shower, bathroom sink, bathroom mirror and the floor of the bathroom were not cleaned. The bathroom carpet was dirty and had not been washed. Toilet unflushed with paper toilet.
There was an considerable amount of dirt underneath the bed. There were bread crumbs left in the toaster and inside the oven tray. Cleaning cloth left in the kitchen sink all wet and rolled up. It seemed to me that the house was prepared a bit in a rush without much consideration. The lines and towels did not smelled like clean. There was water dripping from the water heater in the bathroom and under the kitchen sink (which Pierre came to fix, after reported).
The MAJOR problem I had was with the door lock of the apartment, which caused the most unpleasantness. I reported the issue to the owner, explaining that I had been locked outside the house the previous evening and that I had struggled t open the door to enter the studio. Pierre volunteered to come and check the problem and I let him know the time that I would be house that day so we could see the issue. Apparently his mother came to check the problem that day (between the time I was not in there), trie to open and everything work fine. Tough I had the same issue that evening. I called the owner that mentioned that he could not come and help me, but that his mother would do it. Instead his mother called me, saying that she saw no reason to leave her house to come and assist me and that I was just panicking (so helpful!!), that she would explain me over the phone how to open the door. Apparently the lock as she said has a "trick". A door lock that has a trick that you forget to mention to your guest is, is just great! I was just waiting outside the studio, standing alone in the street, hungry and with my dinner getting cold, with work to finish and instead of some real help, I have someone yelling at me on the phone, on how easy the lock is, that I just need to listen to her instructions and follow those (which I did and still didn't managed to open) and how she did come to the house that day and tried three times and it was easy peasy. What if I was a disabled person? How sensintive!
Aparently beacuse it's a wooden door, in the winter it expands slightly (hence why this happened in the evening, when temperatures go down). I understand it. But again, if I was the lender and I knew that the locker has a trick and the door has this issue, I would not rent the house to strangers without having fixed the issue. In my view this is not some minor issue that a house has. If it means that guests can be locked outside the house WITHTOUT help and being unable to entre the apartment, that's a MAJOR issue!!! To be repaired ASAP! Specially because both Pierre and his mother knew about it, knew that this could happened and did nothing before the arrival.
The solution I was given: do not lock the door, just close it by pulling the door when you leave and it should be fine. very safe.
But, if it was not enough, while talking over the phone with Pierre's mother, she did mention she ENTERED the studio that day (again, when I was not in the house event tough I have explicitly texted the time I would be), came upstairs and closed the window that faces the street (the window was closed, I would never leave the house without closing everything). But, as she refers that was reasonable because "we are the owners" and "I did not touch anything". The window was open she swears, because a neighbor told her so (so, are we spying the guests is that it!???) and she had a witness with her. So it means that two strangers CAME INSIDE the studio that I rented, knowing that I would not be home during that time because I said so, during COVID, doing I don't know what, in a space that for that week I rented as my own, where I left all my personal/intimate belongings, professional stuff, etc. I felt that my privacy and space were invaded, a completely disrespected and unethical behaviour. Plus, when I mentioned this to Pierre he did not seemed very surprised so perhaps it's common practice.
I guess that if I hadn't managed to open the door with the help of a stranger passing by in the street, I would have had to sleep in the street since the mother was not