Do NOT Rent This Vacation Home!
Review Submitted: September 19, 2009
Date of Stay: August 2009
My family & I rented this house in August of 2009. The advertised rate was not honored for all the nights! The agreed upon time for key p-up was not honored either! Made us late for our rehearsal lunch! The house is still in its "fixer-upper" stage...the owner was inside the house DAILY, fixing things, during our stay! The BBQ did NOT work either! He brought over a 2nd BBQ & that BBQ didn't work either so we had to cancel our BBQ event! It's been 30+ days since our departure & he has yet to refund our deposit money-even thou we left the house in perfect condition upon our departure & have pictures as proof! He has not returned our calls/e-mails/texts! The last communication from him was that our deposit check was being mailed that day, that was 20+ days ago! :(
Owner's Response: 1) Our ad on Homeaway.com in rate section clearly showed 350 per weeknight and 450 weekend night. The rental contract merely reflects this price schedules. Alice read and signed it so I don't quite understand what she meant. She did make a price reduction request which we turned down before the contract was signed.
2) Checkin time is 3PM per contract. Alice requested the key pickup to be at 1PM. I said to try my best but was about 15 minutes late. They didn't just pick up the key but actually checked in with baggage and all and did a walk-though with me. If indeed there was a such important rehearsal wouldn't they just pick up key and left.
3)" The house is in fixer upper stage, owner there daily fixing things" This statement is completely untrue. Alice didn't even stay in the place and I have never met her. The only thing that was even close to me "fixing things" was when I was there to hand them the key the first day I noticed a loose recess light trim so I tighten it. This whole "fixing thing" activity took me no more than 2 minutes and occurred even before the official checkin time of 3:PM.
4) BBQ grill: When I was informed about the first grill not working we brought a second one over immediately. I personally tested it with another person and it did work when we delivered it.
5) Unresponsive to emails from Alice: I left for vacation and didn't leave enough info for my staff to carry out the task of refund and communication, thus the unfortunate tardiness in refund and with me on vacation, not responding in time. I have apologized to her and she accepted the apologies. As we speak Alice has received her $200 damage deposit. I immediately sent out the refund (overnight express) as soon as I came back from vacation and realized what happened. We were 4 days late.
Summary:
After Alice's party left the ONLY THING I heard from her was the request for a refund due to the outside BBQ grill not working I explained to her that if indeed the replaced one didn't work they should have called me right away and if I could not remedy the situation I would consider such request but not after the fact. By the way I did check the BBQ grill recently and it still worked. I suspected the users were not familiar with THIS grill.
I have to write this response in the factual way since Alice was presenting the facts that supposedly affected her opinion and I hope I don't sound bitter. Any of these facts I presented can be proven for whoever wants to see.
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Helpful votes: 5/5
