Haven't stayed in such a badly built room before. It says it is newly renovated, but the building materials are of lowest quality and the renovation was done unprofessionally, such as, bricks are exposed, and shelves can fall down from the wall. You cannot let the door of your room closed by itself, otherwise, it will hit the door frame, and the whole flat will shake. Every time you close the door you have to fit it into the frame carefully. The door is narrow and thin, and the walls between rooms are just thin plywood too. It says each room is sound-proof, which is the reason I chose this place to stay. However, you can hear people talking next door, passing the corridor, or turning on the water in the kitchen or bathroom. Vice versa, you may wake up your neighbors if you have to get up early. The entire flat is very dark even during the day because there is no proper window. Except that there are two tiny half-sealed windows in the kitchen and bathroom, which are facing to the small patio surrounding by other apartment buildings, and because the flat is on the ground floor they allow little light in. The first time I came back to the flat I almost fell because there's a deep step down and I couldn't see in the darkness, and I have to go through the dark narrow corridor to get to my room, the kitchen and bathroom. The same when I went out. There are two steps down from the corridor to the hall, but no light in the corridor, and I have to stop at the end of the corridor and wait for two seconds for the sensor light in the hall to turn on in order to see the steps. Instead of setting up more sensor lights, the host will complain if you leave the light of the kitchen on for two minutes when you are back to your room to fetch stuff. Never seen anyone who is more concerned about saving electricity than myself. To adapt to all these troubles, I don't dare to turn on the light in the kitchen but leave the door of my room open to get a ray of light from my room. After training myself to work in the dark, the last night I stayed, the whole flat has a power failure, and I had to pack my luggage and dragged it down and up the steps in the darkness.
There is no air conditioning, but it is cool once you enter the apartment building that lacks sunlight.
From the train station, it is all the way up hill. If you have a suitcase like me, probably better to stay around the station. Madrid is a gigantic city, although the flat locates centrally, there are still considerable walks from any museums and attractions. Metro stations are not in front of the flat either. Deep in the narrow streets, the flat is free from heavy traffic and relatively quiet. But I don't like the neighborhood, there are clusters of drunk people gathering down the dirty street until the mornings.
The host can speak English, but never write in English, and the translation may cause misunderstanding.
There are some advantages of the place though. The bed is big and comfortable enough. The free floor in the room is merely big enough to allow me to lay down my suitcase. There are lots of hangers.