Disclaimer: I am writing this honest review after being asked directly by Artem to give him a 5-start review because he was giving me one. No sir. I deserve a 5 start review for the cleaning and sanitizing that I did to get the floors and bathroom clean. My family and I spent some time and made a list of the things we wanted to share to hopefully better inform future renters.
My family booked this house with hopes of having a respite from Covid and winter in a warmer area. We arrived about an hour before check in and were initially thrilled that Artem said the place was ready and we could check in early. When we got to the house there was a car in the garage. Artem responded that it was the pool guy and he was outside only. It turns out that was a cleaning crew who finished up quickly and left.
Upon entry to the house we immediately smelled a bad smell. It was coming from the extra bathroom so we assumed that someone in the cleaning crew had pooped. We unloaded and I put my 11 month old son to bed. As the evening progressed we realized that the smell was not resolving. My older kids noted a sign in the extra bathroom stating that toilet paper could not be flushed due to a "known sewage issue." Odd.
This led us to do some research and read reviews that had been posted since we booked in September. There were many glowing reviews, most of which were a 100% mismatch from what we were experiencing and observing. I did see a few honest gems that articulated precisely what we were observing.
1 - Sewage smell. See above. As our stay progressed the smell started to show up in the master and kitchen sink
2 - The pictures in the add were notable different than the house. My kids had fun walking around and noticing the differences
3 - The master shower leaks and floods the bathroom with water
4 - The floors were so dirty we had to wash my 11 month old's hands regularly. We kept him, and us, in shoes and socks at all times. I also had to wash and sanitize all his toys as they were filthy from playing on the floor
5 - I received a message that the previous renters had broken the drier and it would be fixed Monday. The service person did not show up, they did come on Tuesday. As he was installing the drier he asked me if I wanted to clean/vacuum. Nope. I'm on vacation
6 - The house is not a great fit if you have small children. There was no stopper in the one bathtub so we had to purchase one to give my son a bath. And floors, see above
7 - The furniture was not functional. It was extremely uncomfortable. We ended up sitting on the floor with pillows more than the couches. The kitchen chairs felt like you were going to fall through them when you sat down.
8 - The outside chairs were falling apart and unusable minus my 12 year old
9 - There is no TV service unless you log in with your own information. We could see previous occupants log in information and opted not to put any of ours in
10 - There were limited outlets in the bedrooms. There was no installed lighting and none of the light switches worked with the available outlets. There were lamps in each room, unplugged, and if you wanted to have the lights on you can't have many other things plugged in.
In all fairness, Artem was responsive about some initial questions. Once we realized the overall quality of the house and the chronic nature of some of our complaints we opted not to address them in the moment spending our vacation packing back up and moving for the last 3 or our 4 nights. The house does have some nice decorative touches. However that does little to buffer the sewage smell and general let down of our expectations.