Ocean Views, Easy Access to Best Beach on Island!

Andrew rented for 2 nights. VRBO guidelines ask guests to refuse to stay at a property if they are unhappy with the cleaning BEFORE STAYING ONE NIGHT. VRBO will then attempt to relocate the unhappy guest to a property more to their liking. Andrew did not complain at all until 2 days after he had left and after the house had already been cleaned. He took no pictures. I immediately sent 2 independent assistants (unrelated to the cleaning service) to the house and beach but his complaints could not be verified except for a couple of spider webs in out of the way places and shower curtain liners that needed to be replaced. I shared his concerns with my cleaning service and she acknowledged that the liners needed to be replaced but she didn't have any with her when she last cleaned and then forgot to go back. We will be sure to double check these in the future. At first Andrew's primary concern appeared to be with the Beach Access : " you gave us no warning prior to the cancel date that the beach access was not usable -- the walkway ended at a marsh with alligator signs. I rented a beach access house and didn't get it!! That's a significant misrepresentation". Apparently Andrew went out during or near a king tide event. Alligator warning signs are on every access -- it does not mean the access is closed or that there are alligators there. Andrew sent me a picture of dry sand in the foreground with about 10 feet of the path that appeared wet with about an inch of water in it before reaching the beach. I suspect he did not try to go to the beach during low tide. Literally the day after he left, a guest commented on how wonderful the beach access was. On the day Andrew first complained, both assistants confirmed that the access was in great shape all the way out onto the beach with no standing water in the path. I am sad that Andrew was disappointed, but King tides are a relatively rare part of nature and I do not track or try to predict them.

These people lost the golf cart keys and were totally vicious when I suggested charging them a $25 replacement fee because I had to call a dealer to send out replacements for the next guest.  I didn't charge them but now wish I had.   This was the first I heard about problems with cleaning and I regret that I was skeptical, for obvious reasons. 

Ann complained of the smell the first day she arrived. I sent someone from my cleaning service over there and he said he couldn't smell anything. I have no way of knowing if there was a smell or not, but the way VRBO suggests dealing with an issue like this is simply not to accept the house and let VRBO find someplace else for you to stay or refund 100% of your money. Ann chose to stay. I didn't hear from her again that week until the afternoon before she was due to leave, again complaining about the smell and also about a critter under the floor scratching. Later that evening, she reported ants coming out of the faucet in the tub of one bathroom. I have never heard of anything like this before and have no idea how or why ants can suddenly come out of a faucet that was perfectly clear the day before. This is a horrible thing to have happen, but they were scheduled to leave the next morning before 10:00 a.m. and there was another bathroom that had no ants. Ants were never reported in any part of the house except this bathroom. I sent someone over to the house as soon as Ann left. They said they could not smell anything or hear anything scratching under the house, but they did see ants in the one bathroom. I called an exterminator immediately and he took care of any ant problems, but the critter appears to come and make scratching sounds, then disappear for weeks, only to return and make more scratching sounds for a few days and then disappear again. It never seems to be there when I send someone out to deal with it. I have another exterminator coming out this week to try again. Note that it cannot get into the house and only makes scratching noises under the floor. Ann only complained to me on the first day when she arrived and on the afternoon /evening before she was due to leave. As far as I knew, the smell issue had been resolved and there were no other problems. She could have asked to leave at any time and asked me or VRBO for a refund. But she stayed the entire week and never suggested leaving a minute early. My house is not fancy, which I feel is reflected in the listing description and pictures. But I felt bad that Ann was inconvenienced and unhappy and I wanted to make things right with her, so I offered a $300 refund, which is about 15% of what I made for the week. Ann responded, and I quote: "You know what, I feel terrible even considering not putting up a review because I think other people should know how bad your house is. So, for $700 I won’t put up a review, but nothing less. Let me know what you decide." This felt like extortion to me. I didn't want a negative review... but I just couldn't bring myself to pay her off.

We finally replaced our cleaning service before our last guest -- and they left a 5 star review.   Whew!  This was a difficult decision as we had been happy with our previous service for two years and kept feeling we needed to give them one more chance.  Our new cleaning service comes highly recommended so hopefully these problems are now behind us.

I deeply regret that we let the cleaning problems continue for as long as we did.  It's difficult to fire a team that has done good work in the past.