Our stay at Marco's place was not enjoyable. The day of our arrival he informed us that he had to leave town a friend of his would let us in. We soon discovered that the provided address only included the apartment number and the street, but not the building number leaving us feeling lost. Reaching Marco or his friend proved difficult and so we had to wait in the rain for a half hour for his friend to let us in.
Once inside, we were dismayed to find the apartment smelled heavily of smoke and was unclean. (The kitchen garbage smelled awful, there was a cigarette butt on the floor in the hallway, the bed didn't have a sheet, and the bathroom was dirty). The windows did nothing to muffle the street noise, construction or trains all night.
On day two, we awoke to discover the boiler wasn't working so we no longer had heat or hot water. While that was out of Marco (and friend's) control, when we told them of the issue Marco basically said there was nothing that could be done for the next couple days. Sadly, our accommodations negatively impacted our stay in London and we were happy to leave.