This stay was a disappointment, although there are many great things about the space so I'll start with those:
*The location simply cannot be beat - you're literally one block from the beach, one block from the bay, and a 5-10 minute from a ton of restaurants and bars. This is really what you're paying for.
*The layout of the house is great: There's a master bedroom and bath on the 3rd floor, kitchen and living area on the 2nd floor, and the other 2 bedrooms and bath on the bottom floor.
*There is a 2-car garage, although we were not able to fit both cars in there (a Forester and a Taurus). But even space for one car is helpful in a bustling neighborhood.
We encountered a number of issues on our stay:
* There was a gnat infestation in the kitchen and 1/2 bath, and we found a dead roach/water bug in the 1st floor fridge and live ones in the kitchen. When I raised these concerns with the owner he wasn't phased and indicated that these things are expected at this time of the year or by the water. If you know there is a problem, you should have the house sprayed/treated to prevent or control issues. We had to leave a vacuum in the kitchen to suck up the bugs every morning and throughout the day so we could eat.
* The house was missing many amenities that I consider standard. There were no bathmats or washcloths - everyone gets one towel and that's it.
* There were only 3 sets of utensils, which was problematic since there were 5 of us. Harry remedied that the morning after I raised the issue, but I think the unit should be stocked to accommodate the number of people it's supposed to hold.
* The house wasn't really clean when we got there. The most visible things were clean (e.g. counters, mirrors), but we found clumps of hair in the upstairs bathroom, and then obviously the issue with the bugs. If anyone had cleaned the 1st floor fridge they would have seen that roach/water bug right away, so obviously it wasn't cleaned.
* When we went to do our laundry 1/2 way through our stay we found towels and sheets in the dryer AND in the washer. Those in the washer had been there for a few days at that point and smelled musty. I had to sort of dump everything on a shelf near the washer to make space for our laundry.
* Other than the 2nd floor living area and 1st floor bedrooms, everything else is pretty worn. Others have mentioned the stains on the stair carpeting, and the bathrooms were missing things like the handle on the sink stopper and the toilet bolt caps.
As I noted before, the owner was very responsive when I contacted him about issues. But for ~$600 per night, I definitely expected more.