First, on the second day of our stay, on November 25th, a stranger entered our rental home without permission and without reason as there was no service request made. This stranger walked in on my mother-in-law as she was coming out of the shower. My mother-in-law expressed fear in hearing a strange voice while she was in the shower. She stated that seeing a strange man heading towards her as she left the shower provoked feelings of fear and helplessness that severely impacted her ability to enjoy the remaining of our vacation. Not only did she not feel safe in your rental home but she also felt that she could not be left alone nor seek alternative housing accommodations on such short notice on a busy holiday weekend.
To make matters worse, her and most of our guests did not want to leave their valuables in an insecure location. This led to our group staying back in pairs to guard our valuables. This stranger claimed to be there to clean the home and he was in the company of another younger man who was waiting outside. This stranger’s actions were wildly inappropriate and created a traumatic event for my mother-in-law. If you are a worker and you are checking on the house and you see shoes outside and you hear a shower running YOUR FIRST OPTION SHOULD NOT BE TO WALK TOWARDS THE SHOWER. Any reasonable person would know that the person in the shower is in a vulnerable state and the worker should not have gone continued to remain in the home. If it is not clear, I am extremely upset that my mother-in-law was placed in this traumatic situation.
Second, although I contacted Vacasa promptly about the trespassing incident on November 25th, I was not given an explanation of this incident until AFTER the end of my stay on November 29th. This means that this incident created a lot of uncertainty and fear for my family members from Day 2 of our stay to the remaining of our stay. The lack of communication created an environment where we believed random men had access to our rental home and could invade our privacy at any moment. Overall, it significantly negatively impacted our trip. As discussed, while awaiting an explanation, my family decided to take turns staying at the house to guard our valuables. This meant that originally planned adventures and excursions for the entire group had to be canceled since this caused us to break up our group as mentioned above.
Third, my family did not have access to the washer and dryer that was supposed to be available to use as stated in the listing of the home rental. In other words, this home rental was FALSELY ADVERTISING these essential amenities. I contacted Vacasa about this, and I was told that someone would get in touch about this, but that NEVER happened.
Fourth, certain essentials such as toilet paper and paper towels were provided in limited supply for my large group of 8 people. We had to go out of our way to the store to buy these essential items ourselves.
Vacasa company has sent me a partial reimbursement, not the reasonable amount I requested. Of course, even my full request is not going to compensate for the trauma that my mother-in-law experienced, the invasion of privacy that made us feel UNSAFE, false advertisement of amenities, and lack of prompt conflict negotiation and communication.
Unfortunately, to this date I have not received a formal apology or a message telling me the steps Vacasa company is going to take to prevent this from happening to future guests.