Chapel Hill
Submitted: March 12, 2013
Stayed: February 2013
I am hesitant to badmouth a fellow rental property owner's property, and I'll try my best to be fair and objective here. Upon my arrival, despite frantic owner emails to the contrary my GPS brought me right to the address. I pulled into the parking lot where I was greeted with the sight of several cars with mismatched body parts and missing wheel covers. I was able to find the last open spot, right next to a trailer filled with debris and construction waste. I opened the lock box, took out the keys and went into the unit. My first impression was that this was the same apartment that I had left when I graduated from college in 1974. The musty odor, the sidewalk abandoned furniture decor, and dingy carpet brought back so many memories. I turned on the 40 (or lower) watt lights to see if the situation was as dire as it appeared in the dark, and it was. I felt a chill and went to the thermostat, it was turned off-no heat even though the temp was 50 degrees-and the inside temperature was a toasty 51 degrees. I noticed several notes scattered around the first floor, and was amused to read that while the couch did contain a sleeper unit, the mattress was such that the owner had placed a piece of wood nearby for additional support if needed. Also, the fireplace had a rather stern note warning it was not to be used without the owners permission. I then went upstairs to inspect the bedrooms, and and when trying to turn on a bedside lamp, noticed it was unplugged. When I attempted to plug the lamp in, I noticed that one on the tabs was broken off of the connector, so not wanting to burn the place down, I left the lamp unplugged. After these experiences I decided that perhaps I should find alternate accommodations in the area, so I attempted to call a number that was on a note on the first floor. No answer was forthcoming, but then I noticed a woman and her daughter? entering a door marked 'office' in the building. I went to the door they entered, and knocked trying to see if they knew how I could contact someone to let them know of my change in plans. Alas, there was no answer to my knock, and as it was getting dark, I then left to seek other room arrangements at a local hotel. This is a rather long and rambling way of saying that this place needs help and lots of it if it is to be considered anything more than a mid 70's style college apartment. I urge anyone looking at this rental to be very aware of what kind of accommodation they are getting, and act accordingly.
Owner's Response: We would like to give a detailed response to the above review, which did not surprise us for the reasons stated below. We hope the reader will read the other numerous positive reviews we have received in order to obtain a more accurate picture of Chapel Hill InnTown. We have lots of satisfied customers, many of whom return year after year. But to answer the specific complaints: (1) We email an information packet to our guests when we confirm the reservation. We do this to assist them because GPS systems sometimes don’t find our lodging correctly, so we try to make sure our guests have clear directions, especially if arriving late at night. We ask our guests to acknowledge receipt of the information packet, and this individual ignored several requests to confirm that he received the information. Eventually we heard from him, and he complained that the instructions were rude and offensive. This has never happened in the 12 years we have owned the business. This behavior was so bizarre that in retrospect, we probably should have encouraged him to seek lodging elsewhere. (2) Two of our seven units are currently occupied by very nice Hispanic construction workers constructing the new Walmart nearby. They are very quiet and respectful, but they do drive older cars and trucks. We are sorry that this offended him. (3) We also have plenty of overflow parking if our main lot is full, but the above client, as mentioned earlier, refused to read our information packet, saying it was rude and offensive. (4) We are sorry the heat was low when the guest arrived, but our boilers bring up the heat very quickly in the units, probably in 5-10 minutes. (5) Our units have central heat and air, but we ask people to contact us before using the fireplace because we have had situations where people didn’t know about opening the dampers, thus smoking up the whole condo, causing the smoke detectors to go off. Again, we are sorry he took offense at this reasonable request. (6) This guest did not read the instructions and he tried calling the housekeeper instead of us. We are available 24/7 and could have rectified any concerns he had, including the bad lamp plug – which is a very simple maintenance repair. (7) Lastly, this client left with no notice and left the door to the condo open all night long with the thermostat at 85 degrees. He probably wrote the above review because we charged his card for the one night he arrived and did not notify us that he left.
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