I’ll list the facts as briefly as I can. The first day of the house started with the alarm constantly beeping, the sliding back door not being able to close properly and bad ant problem. There was also a violation letter taped to the refrigerator stating the owner did not have a permit to operate as a hotel/STR in the city. We also took a quick look out of the back door and noticed a lot of leaves in the pool and asked it to be cleaned. The door and alarm issues were quickly resolved after texting the host, Anna. A man came over, unannounced and without a mask to fix everything, including a light net sweep of the pool to get the leaves out. My kids also found a box of condemn in the play kiddie kitchen they had under the stairs. (DAY 1)
The next day, we decided to get in the pool. Luckily before the kids jumped in, I noticed there were iguana feces in the pool. There were about 8-10 pieces of old iguana feces in the water at the bottom. I’m from Florida and am very familiar with the issue, so I know the feces sat in the pool for at least a week! I was upset because they (Anna and the man who came over) could’ve warned us about the issue. Iguana feces can be dangerous to kids because of salmonella. Frankly, it’s just nasty to anyone.
Here’s a list of my issues: The house is not clean. The glass top stove is extremely cracked/broken in many places, the white kitchen chairs are broken and extremely dirty, the master bathroom had a strong urine smell (we realized later it was the old toilet brushes next to the toilet), the sofa’s are so badly damaged that they have blankets to cover them (which kept falling off), the upstairs bathroom countertop is severely cracked, the upstairs shower clogs up with water, the upstairs beds are not comfortable and make a lot of noise when you make the slightest move. We stayed over a week and after a few days, one of the bedrooms smelled like cigarette smoke. The kitchen pots were disgusting we ended up buying our own. The kitchen sink doesn’t drain properly (the disposal is broken).
After 3 days of waiting for a professional company to clean the pool, they finally came. Anna offered 1-2 nights free for the inconvenience. We did not take it because we frankly felt like enough was enough.
We never got in the pool because the iguanas continued to poop around the poolside. I ended up catching a couple of them in the act! To top it off, the ceiling began to leak two days before we left due to the rain.
The positives about the house are that it’s in a good location and nice neighborhood. Anna was also OK with us checking out late (we had no choice because the kids had online classes that we didn’t want to interrupt). Too bad the house it not kept up. It seems like the consolation is a quick “sorry, stay a free night”, which was not acceptable to us.