A little challenging
Submitted: January 5, 2013
Stayed: December 2012
My family and I rented this house to enjoy over the week of Christmas. The owner was very easy to deal with throughout booking and in advance of our stay. I loved that the entry was with a code, so since we were all coming from different directions, whoever arrived first just needed a code to get in. The location was great--just a couple blocks from downtown. We walked downtown a few times and enjoyed the town. We also drove to the beach on Christmas Day, which was beautiful. One night, we had a great dinner at Phil's. The house was fine, and the open layout was great, but there were some definite challenges.
The fireplace was great, and we had a fire going throughout most of our stay. There were no fireplace tools though, and no screen or anything. Additionally, the fireplace was full of ashes when we arrived, so we had to clean it first thing. The house is very sparsely decorated and furnished. There's nothing on any of the walls and there are no night stands in 2 of the bedrooms. The upstairs bathroom shower would not drain so you were showering in ankle-deep water. All of the beds were made with just a sheet and a very thin bedspread, so we had to go out and buy blankets. There were actually quite a few things that we had to purchase. None of the bathrooms had soap, there was no salt or pepper, we were left with about 3 trash bags and 4 dishwasher tablets--not enough for 5 days. There was 1/2 a roll of paper towels, but no napkins. There was a non-working electric can opener, so we purchased a cheap manual can opener. Also, there were not enough glasses for all of us. I believe there were 5 water glasses and 2 wine glasses in the cabinets, and a couple other odd glasses. It meant we were constantly hand washing glasses. The outside trash can was overflowing with trash, so we didn't want to take any more trash outside, in case a critter would get into it.
All in all, the challenges with this place were not enough to ruin a great family christmas, but I just wish the owner or property manager had spent a little bit of time and money so that our trip could have gone more smoothly. We planned this trip with the intention that we wanted to avoid all Christmas stress, and instead spent Dec. 24th shopping with the last-minute masses.
Owner's Response: I'm glad you enjoyed your stay! I really wish you would have called me when you needed something because this could have so easily been corrected. I'm always happy to correct any problems and we strive to make everyone happy and comfortable. I had no idea the upper bath room had a slow drain but would have sent over the maintenance man immediately. The trash was also emptied right before your arrival so I'm not sure how it got full but again I would have gladly had someone empty it. I could have also let you know that there are extra blankets in the drawers. There is also a second set of glassware above the bar in the entertainment room. Perhaps some of the kitchen glasses got moved to the bar area. I also was not aware that the can opener was not working. There was a hand opener as a backup but, again I would have gladly brought over a new one. I will certainly check out these things immediately and have them corrected. We provide hand soap by each sink but we don't provide shower soap or shampoo. We also don't provide salt and pepper. If you needed more of the supplies, I would have been happy to bring those over... I'd also have brought shampoo and salt and pepper if you'd asked. I know your dog chewed a bath mat and urinated on a bed spread both of which we are replacing... so I'm not sure if you are writing this to avoid being charged for damages but either way, I appreciate your input and will be sure to correct any problems. To anyone reading this review, please call if there is a problem. We want everyone to be happy and we work to make sure that is the case. In order to do so, we appreciate if you let us know if something needs to be corrected. Not living in the house, it is often hard to know if there is a problem like a slow drain unless someone lets us know.
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