Fatma was wonderfully warm and generous. The apartment is located right near some great parts of Istanbul. Although the apartment is in a very poor neighborhood, we did not have any negative experiences in terms of personal safety. There were, however, some problems with the apartment. Every day it filled with flies; no matter how many we killed, more came in each day. There must be a way to seal the place up better than at present in order to diminish this problem. Perhaps this is less of an issue when the weather is colder. In addition, the bed mattress was in a pretty old iron bedstead, but was placed on a wooden board that was nearly broken in two. The mattress consequently sagged towards the middle and was one of the hardest things I've slept on in my life. Finally, the place smelled strongly of mildew/mold. We turned on the air conditioner to get rid of this smell, but it never went away totally. In sum, the price for the place was very good, the location is perfect, and Fatma is very nice person and a great host, but the place came with some very significant down sides that need to be dealt with.