I hate leaving negative reviews and generally don't feel that it's necessary, especially if issues can be resolved. However, our recent stay had too many negative surprises, particularly since many of the positives we read about in the reviews (beds, cleanliness) were the things we had trouble with.
First, the positives: This house is in a quiet neighborhood and seems to have been recently renovated, so the finishes and fixtures are generally new and the design is pleasant.The open kitchen/living room space is nice for small groups, with the bedrooms and bathrooms tucked nicely off to the side and back of the house. The backyard is fully enclosed with a solid fence, which was great with kids. Check-in is easy with a keypad on the door and Cindy was very accommodating with our check-in request.
The negatives: Immediately after arrival, we noticed a smoke detector beeping every few seconds and found that the master bedroom smoke detector was missing its battery-- Someone had knowingly removed it, and left it that way. We had to run to the store and buy a battery to stop the annoying chirping and make the unit safe/effective again, since we hadn't heard back from our host.
Though all cabinets and fixtures appear to be new, they are not in great shape. We had a kitchen cabinet door and bathroom drawer simply FALL OFF when searching for the supplies that we expected to stocked in the house. Later that evening, we found that the molding on the kitchen island was almost completely detached, with several nails poking out-- We had small children in our party, so this was a definite safety hazard.
As for those supplies, we found that there were no paper towels, cloth kitchen towels, or dishwasher detergent/pods available in the house (even though you're supposed to start the dishwasher at checkout.) The kitchen is poorly stocked in general, but we were at least expecting supplies to be able to clean up after ourselves. We also didn't have a bath towel for each person in our party, despite of course including the number of guests when we booked the home. (No washcloths or hand-towels, either, though we would have just settled for bath towels.)
While most surfaces *looked clean,* we all removed our shoes at the door out of courtesy and found that our bare feet or socks were immediately FILTHY. I don't mean a bit of dirt-- Our feet were absolutely blackened within minutes, and we all had to wash our feet thoroughly before bed/never walk barefoot in the house again. I can't actually imagine how so much sooty dirt got onto the floor-- There's no way it had been swept or mopped before our stay (we wondered if construction dust from the building going up next door was blowing in and the floors weren't being cleaned?)
We tried to bathe the kids in the bathtubs, but neither tub actually held water because the plug mechanism didn't work.
When we went to bed, we found that the master bedroom had no top sheet or non-sham pillowcases-- It simply had a comforter and shams, while other bedrooms (with identical bedding) DID have top sheets and regular pillows/pillowcases. We felt like there was nothing between us and a possibly unwashed duvet cover (since the other rooms had sheet sets, we didn't feel confident that washing the duvet was part of the regular routine after each stay). We also suggest that you specifically call out if you want to use the pullout bed in the living room (and hope for the best) because it was still covered in plastic, and bedding is not arranged for this bed. The pullout mattress is *extremely* uncomfortable (you can feel every spring with your hand without pressing down) so we wouldn't recommend it for an adult.
We informed our host as issues arose, and are generally very forgiving of mistakes if they can be resolved. However, communication with our host was slow, and most of our issues were never addressed. We never did hear from Cindy, but rather from her fiance, who apologized somewhat, but also tried to insist that the master bedroom bedding was normal (again, the other bedrooms had the same duvet/shams, but also had a full sheet set). He came by while we were gone the following day, and got dishwasher pods out of the garage for us. He brought towels and left them in the washing machine, so we dried and eventually had more bath towels. However, we never did get any paper towels, kitchen towels, or bedding for the master bed-- Though we could see a King set of sheets in the garage that I guess he didn't want to bring in?
Our whole group is generally low-maintenance and easy going, but were all pretty frustrated and shocked by the end of our two-night stay. Cute house, but the renovation was very low-quality, and amenities/communication need some serious work.