Pros: -The house is cleaner than the majority of homes my family members and I have stayed in over the years.
-It's a 5 min. walk to the beach.
-Although I brought my own everything, she had cleaning products, TP, PT's, laundry soap, plenty of towels, etc.
Cons: -The house is pretty outdated and needs some upgrades and many small fixes.
-The owner is not a very nice person if anything goes wrong- your fault or not, and has poor communication skills. We got there and I texted "House is great but key is stuck in the door..." She told me to leave it in the lock- it was a safe neighborhood, no break-ins and her husband would come in the morning. I was traveling alone with 5 kids and I wasn't about to leave a key in the door- don't even want to think about what could've happened. I told her she could have someone come that night, call a locksmith, or reimburse me for one- all reasonable options to me. A neighbor came and then she texted me that I put the key in backwards. That can't happen first of all, and if it did, you wouldn't be able to unlock the door. I've used keys for 40+ years- they don't go in backwards.
On our last night I put some leftover spag. down the garbage disposal and it sucked it down too fast and the drain clogged. I let her know and OMG, she acted like 1) I had done it on purpose- "you & your kids" were stuffing too much food down it 2) like I had accused her of having a crappy, disgustingly dirty disposal or something (?!) and 3) like I was telling her to come right then and fix it. I was boggled. All I did was let her know it was clogged- I didn't care when she fixed it since we were leaving in the a.m. She acted so rude and personally insulted- it was very weird. Went off about how she cleans the house and inspects it, on and on. I didn't mean to do it- it was an accident, but she made me feel TERRIBLE! If you're going to rent a house out to strangers, you've got to be able to handle the good AND the bad and communicate NICELY. We were AMAZING renters! Took good care, kept it clean, and left it immaculate. However, she sent me a pic 2 days later showing me the spag. in the drain and went off on me about "I can do what I want in my house -Google foods that don't go in gar. disp.", she was just mean and rude. My insurance paid for the plumber, oh, and a lost set of keys which of course, she filed as a "theft". sigh I'm sure she's nice if everything goes PERFECT- but humans and houses are NOT perfect.