If you are thinking about renting this place, pay careful attention to the review of Jennifer H. She experienced the exact same "theft of security deposit" we did.
You will find the house in acceptable condition. And, when you leave, like most people you will inspect every room, drawer, closet and waste basket. You will exit the house feeling good about your stay and the condition in which you left the house. Then it will get interesting.
You are (by contract) supposed to receive refund of you security deposit within seven days of your departure. When that did not happen, we sent an email to the owner inquiring why not. (The owner resides out of state and is not able to inspect the property.) We then received a response about all the terrible things we did to the house. The owner claimed our grandkids had left fingerprints on every window, we had left a dirty diaper in a waste basket, that a bookcase had been moved and damaged, and that the cleaning service had to work longer due to all the laundry.
Absolutely none of this was true. Our grandkids, 5, 2 and 11 months were in Leland for two days to take part in our son's wedding. Because of all the activities, they were in the house only at night to sleep. We emptied all the trash and made sure nothing was left in any room. We actually started one load of laundry (towels, because we know they take longer to dry and wanted to accommodate the next guests) before we left. And when we arrived, we did not complain about the refrigerator and freezer, which did not work properly, or the master bathroom sink which had to have globs of hair and toothpaste removed so it would drain.
We have been blessed to be able to travel all over the world and have stayed in hundreds of different rooms and rentals. We have always insisted on leaving a place as good as we found it. This trip was no exception.
The owner did not respond at all to our report. We believe the cleaning service either "invented" work to justify a higher cleaning fee or that both owner and cleaning service and in on this ruse (see Jennifer H. review).
And, as we said earlier, you're supposed to receive your security deposit by contract within seven days of departure. We received less than half our security deposit (which doesn't even include the standard cleaning fee) 25 days after our exit.
Rent this house if you dare, but be prepared to lose most of you security deposit for things that will not happen.
Owner's Response:We provide an explicit guidelines and information sheet to all our tenants in which we ask ALL members of the party to be familiar with. It covers everything (trash, linens, laundry, parking, maintenance contacts, prior departure things and leaving the unit as "clean and tidy" as you found it.
To say our housekeeper was exasperated when she arrived is an understatement. She was late to her next job due to the extra time required in our unit. No trash wastebaskets (baths and kitchen) had been emptied, and a dirty diaper was in the downstairs bathroom. Food was found in the queen bedroom, candy wrappers tucked in the seat of the leather sofa, and food was stuck on the seat of the upholstered chair in living room which required extra cleaning. At least 90% of the windows all had "small handprints" on them. Our home as you can see has a lot of windows which are all easily within reach of the young children that were there. Also these windows had ALL been cleaned inside and out prior to our first tenants in July and no one prior to this tenant had smeared or left prints on the windows. Our housekeeper has had compliments on her cleaning with even a kind note from one of our repeat tenants. Since our stay at our home this summer was after this tenant departed, our housekeeper was able to show us all that we have explained here.
In addition, we were kind enough to grant this tenant an extra day to vacate for their convenience , knowing it would probably cost us a week's rent, as short weeks are not a vacationer's first choice. Little did we know that their lack of appreciation and care would cost us so much extra cleaning as well.
