We stayed for nearly 3 weeks and loved it. Yes there is noise from the road however you soon get used to it and yes on occasions there is a drain smell however this is Spanish drains and run some water and problem solved.
We knew that the apartment was not in the centre of Malaga however the roof terrace was the main appeal to us, it was fab. Sun for most of the day in March is just what we wanted. It does take approx 25 mins to walk to the centre and the easiest/most direct route we found was turn right out of the apartment, first left, first right and then follow the road into the city.
There are several supermarkets only a few minutes walk away and we used the train from Malaga airport to María Zambrano train station (really easy as you don't need to buy a train ticket, just tap your bank card, same as London underground and tap again at Zambrano) train costs under 2 Euros. We then used an Uber to the apartment and cost 6 Euros, really easy.
Great hosts, great apartment!