I’m truly and utterly shocked by all of the positive reviews this property and this host have received. My recent experience was anything but enjoyable. In fact, it nearly resulted in my daughter being hospitalized.

Cleanliness. After a long day of cross-country travel, I arrived at the property to see (and smell) that the home was filthy. My wife was so disgusted that she felt the need to clean the dirty surfaces and floors before settling in. Exhausted and disappointed, my family finally decided to call it a night. No sooner than my daughter climbed into bed her throat began to close and she started having trouble breathing. She is allergic to cats. She climbed out of bed to find that her black pajamas were completely covered in white cat hair (she has dogs and is not allergic to them). My daughter took a Benadryl and left the house immediately. We monitored her and ultimately—thankfully—determined she did not need to go to the hospital. She was able to stay with family that first night. She felt ill and slept a majority of the following day as well. Considering that she was in town visiting and supporting her deployed brother's family, she was extremely saddened to miss out on two entire days of the vacation.
Responsiveness of Host. In the immediate aftermath, we contacted James to notify him of the problems we were having. He was initially very responsive, and told us he was going to Target to buy new sheets. He delivered the sheets to us that night, and we stayed up into the early morning hours washing them. Despite the rocky start to our trip, we made every effort to roll with the punches. James had a cleaning crew come out to clean the house the following day. However, he apologized for the trouble and stated his “usual” cleaning crew was unavailable to clean the property before our arrival. This felt somewhat insulting because in my opinion, the house did not appear to be cleaned very well, if at all. The bed linens hadn’t been changed and surfaces were grimy and disgusting. The floors did not look like they had been vacuumed or thoroughly swept.

I personally spent hours cleaning the house. I washed everything: all the bed spreads, all sheets (including the new ones), the mattress pads, all the blankets, and all the towels. I dusted the ceiling fans, which were caked with a thick layer of dust. I cleaned out both A/C unit filters, which were so clogged that I felt compelled to take photographs. It was disgusting and unlike anything I had ever seen. When I saw how filthy the house was, I immediately understood why my daughter had such an acute and severe reaction.

After a thorough cleaning by myself and the cleaning crew on the second day of our visit, the house was suddenly, not surprisingly, livable again for my daughter. She returned on the second night of our stay and had no reaction, further proving that the house was not adequately cleaned before our arrival.

Dispute Resolution. The condition of the property was distressing, but the response I received from James, the host, was worse. I requested a discount, but James only gave me a 1-day credit. I do not feel this fairly compensates for 1) the full amount of time that we were unable to use the property, 2) the fact it was either not cleaned or poorly cleaned before our arrival, 3) the serious allergic reaction my daughter had, and 4) the hours of cleaning we had to do (while on vacation) to make the home safe and livable. I was informed that because the home was listed as "pet friendly," I have no further recourse. I suppose the lesson learned here is that "pet friendly" is synonymous with "unsanitary".

Given my horrific experience, the positive reviews of this property are baffling. Rather than dispute the authenticity of past positive feedback, I will simply opine that the property must be going downhill. I would not recommend it to others—especially anyone with allergies or a compromised immune system. I would hate to see anyone else suffer the same experience we had staying here.