A group of our friends rented the estate for Labor Day Weekend – months in advance. The rules say up to two dogs allowed, but we had four so we messaged Beth to see if that was an issue, and if so, let us know so we can find another place. She doesn’t respond and confirms the reservation and the free cancellation window closes. The WEEK OF our stay, she messages and says that there will an extra $$$$ TOP of the $$$ pet fee. Since it was too late to book another place, we had no other choice but to accept that charge. A week later, Beth messages us again and says she is charging an additional $$$$$$$$ because there was pet hair in the pool and notes that we left dog waste in the yard. We know this is not true as we are extremely diligent about picking up after our dogs. This “pet-friendly” house cost us an extra fifteen hundred on top of the already expensive nightly fee. And this isn’t even including the cleaning fee! Beth mentions that luckily, the new pool liner was NOT scratched. So really, we were charged an extra fee for her to clean out the filter aka a very normal task when maintaining a pool.
Aside from this issue, the estate is nice – but the rooms (except the master) are pretty small. At the cost/night, we still had to buy our own supplies (only one one trash bag and one extra roll of toilet paper were supplied).
We encountered a power outage during our stay – which turns off not only the electricity, but running water as well. The host didn’t apologize for the inconvenience and just told us to wait it out. It only lasted about 1.5-2 hours, but that’s a long time when 15 people have to use the bathroom. On the last full day, someone who works at the farm/estate walks through the property without any notice – to get to the barn/venue. People start showing up to tour the venue for the remainder of the morning. Some of the dogs are reactive to strangers – so not only did the host inconvenience us, but put these people looking at the venue and her employee at risk by not alerting us. We’ve been renting for 10 years now – all of us are highly rated and not disrespectful to any property. There weren’t any cleaning instructions, but we took out all the trash and recycling, wiped down the counters, did all the dishes, and even started the laundry for dirty towels. This is the first time we have encountered such a host who decides to tack on unreasonable charges. Renters beware!