Disappointed
Submitted: April 20, 2012
Stayed: March 2012
I've never had time in my life to write one of these reviews. Had the property management of this home not treated me so disrepectfully, this review would never been written, even given the problems, as things happen sometimes we cannot control. After much stressful discussion some issues were resolved, however, throughout the stay these people were both insulting and rude.
A faulty door access system, which was eventually replaced left only one hidden key between the 8 of us (all of which were going in different directions). We did not want to leave the only key hidden in a separate lock box because it was digital also (who knows it could fault too) and we were concerned our boys may say the code out loud (not realizing) to neighbors who were much too close. Also, I'm not entirely sure the hidden key code is changed visitor to visitor given the disorganization, so security felt compromised the entire stay. So we got to sleep with one eye open.
This home had a nice floorplan and was quite, but is was dirty, sticky and worn a bit. Forget additonal sleeping areas beyond the two bedrooms and the pullout upstairs. Also, I'm from Panama City now living in Atlanta, so I'm use to a little sand in the house, but this was ridiculous - for the rental and cleaning fee paid in advance, I expected it to be much cleaner. And...it's close quarters, the pool picture is not accurate, look closely at the stretched photo. The pool is acutally about the size of a large hot tub. Less than honest photograply.
On top of property disappointments, our second day the owners daughter in law shows up complete with an attitude of disappointment and arrogance. Apparently some additional mix up with property management. This was startling to us as were trying to relax and had this woman looking through the windows and questioning our honesty about being there for the week. Again, we still were not relaxing during our first vacation in years.
My friend and I are both hardworking professional Atlanta business owners who really needed a vacation and strategically chose this house over some nicer properties based on its location and the private pool. Be advised this was the most chaotic vacation of our lives. We feel literally robbed of the only week we so long awaited. The owner did call us, nice lady, but given this crazy story I feel some accomodation should have been offered and wasn't. I'd look elsewhere to vacation and relax.
Owner's Response: I am sorry this renter feels this way, however, When they arrived they were seemingly unable to comprehend the idea of a locking system that does not involve keys. ALL of our properties and an overwhelming number of all rentals now use some form of electronic lock, thus, eliminating the need for multiple keys and cards. The codes are rotated and reprogrammed on a regular basis. There have never been any instances of intrusion in any of our properties. They had indicated to us that the lock needed attention which we addressed immediately but when I arrived in 20 minutes to assess the problem they were not around and had removed the batteries and taken the key from the back up lock box so I had no access to the lock in order to fix it. (The only problem was that they had removed the batteries and refused to use any codes.) To appease them we installed an entirely new locking system without access to the batteries and no key. They had the only code ever given to anyone for that lock, so any paranoia was unnecessary.
This house is a 3 bedroom with a very large loft and 3 bathrooms. As for the neighbors being close and the pool being small - it is clearly evident in the pictures that these houses are close (part of their charm) and the pool is about 12x14 which we call a lounge pool. And as for cleanliness, we have never had issues before and this house is deep cleaned twice a year, once after Spring Break and once after the heavy summer season. The deep cleaning occurred following this guest. Please keep this in mind when traveling next year as this is how rentals are operated.
The daughter-in-law's schedule mix-up was unfortunate as it was caused by the HomeAway.com calendar glitch that caused more than one problem for many management companies. That glitch has been fixed.
We have rented to thousands of happy travelers and love what we do. But, we have run into a few that have seemed to figure out how to work the system: they show up angry and complaining, demand compensation and when they don't get it they leave a bad review. This is a beautiful house owned by a gracious Southern Lady who takes pride in her home and whom we value. Please read the previous reviews. We look forward to having you as guests :)
Helpful votes: 5/7
Did you find this review helpful?
Yes
No
