Archival
2/10 Terrible
Amy V.
May 21, 2013
An unfortunate and unpleasant experience
This home is spacious, nicely decorated and has the potential to be a great vacation home. However, numerous things happened that were unfortunate. The freezer leaked. Light bulbs were burned out. The promised pack-and-play for our baby didn’t have all the parts to make it fully operable. The lease promised that all linens were washed with “no allergy, non-scented” detergent, but the only laundry soap left that we were instructed to use was regular Tide. There were large construction materials left out in a bedroom. Those were the “little things” and no rental home is ever perfect. What made this vacation really unfortunate was the rental experience. Bottomline: the home was double-booked, we couldn’t stay the first night of our pre-paid vacation and the owner refused to refund our money for the night. The previous family thought they had the home for an additional day and we found out when we arrived at check-in time after a 7-hour drive. This left us and our extended family (including 6 children ranging from 6-years -old to 10-months-old) without a place to sleep for our first night. When I called the homeowner that evening, she hung up on me! We had to stay the first night at the only available hotel in the area. When the other family realized their error in reading their lease (which apparently contradicted a different start date sent in e-mail by the owner) later that night, they called us and offered to pay ½ of our hotel bill as an apology to us. When we returned from our vacation, I emailed the homeowner asking for the refund for the first night. She refused to refund us for the night we pre-paid and didn’t get to use. She said that money the other family paid to help us with our hotel expenses WAS our refund. That was never the understanding between us and the family nor us and the owner. The other family helped with our hotel bill because they felt badly, not as a way to refund us for the rent we paid the homeowner! After receiving a series of unpleasant e-mails from the homeowner, we had to go through our credit card to get the refund. Keep in mind that we were only asking for the refund of the one night, not the entire cost of our stay or the increased amount that we were forced to pay at the hotel. Renting this home was a bad experience and being called “ungrateful” and accused of extortion only made the rental experience even more sad. There may be many excuses, but I suggest erring on the side of caution.