Honestly, I hoped time would give me a greater appreciation for this really cool house, as I/we were coming to Block with a super heavy heart, but there were way too many issues for any rose-colored nostalgia to kick in.
The greatest and most significant (creepy) issue being the active camp set up on the property. Being there alone with my two young boys and scared-of-his-own-shadow Bulldog, made this situation increasingly worrisome, when I realized exactly how active it was (around 2 AM the night after Hurricane Ida). I like to remind myself that "you get what you pay for", especially when something seems pretty expensive, but that logic didn't pan out for me here.
Cleanliness, to me, is a matter of personal tolerance so I own that mine is low, but the dishes/silverware/utensils ALL needed to be run through a heavy dishwashing cycle before use.... The recurring, almost laughable biting-fly invasion (that strangely existed on no other part of the island; on no other part of Whale Swamp actually, as we walked to and from the Bluffs often)..... Then the ant parade (infestation) in the pantry- which I should have predicted when I moved aside the ant traps to put a few things (which we later lost to the ants)...... The lack of a working TV -although cable is advertised. And we are not even TV people, but seriously.
Maybe the listing needs to be updated specifying, at minimum, that there is no working TV/cable/a DVD player that works if you have a degree in IT, and there are people (living?) in a camp on the property, that may or may not arrive around 2AM, with dogs or waking the neighbors sleeping dogs, in a really loud and slow Mercedes Diesel as one automobile in the caravan of several (I think the last day/night we were there it was 4 cars parked there). And they will need to come all the way down to your front door to turn around, because it's Whale Swamp after all, and cannot be mistaken for an actual road (which happens to be lovely, but that's not the point). By this point of the barking dogs and the caravan (using the parking lot/driveway/dirt road that you assumed was private) and the people in the caravan now occupying the camp- your dog is barking like crazy and your kids are awake and a little confused at the sight of you, in your pajamas, locking and closing those gorgeous floor to ceiling windows and doors because it's now loud and bright and wreaks of diesel, and you wish these weren't a feature that you are actually paying for, and that maybe you were more of a gun person, just in case, because it is 2 AM on a deserted stretch of "road" and you're pretty sure this was not in the listing.
Just one persons opinion though.