I just finished using my first VRBO for our family vacation. The only other one I have been too was to St. Thomas that my brother had set up (It was excellent and the property was called an Estate).
Anyhow, there were a few interesting things that I am not sure of as being normal for VRBO or similar type rentals, so I wanted to get a feel for if it were normal. I don't want to give away too much info, just in case the owner is a member of this board
First thing I noticed is that the pictures used in the VRBO were definitely when the place was new - b/c getting there they seemed a bit outdated. No big deal though. The owner was there when we arroved to give a walk thru...I assume this is normal?? I don't know if this was to 'check us out' or make sure we didn't have more people than what we said we had or what but again, no bid deal.
When walking thru the house the owner had put labels on everything from where plates go to turn off the A/C when we left for the day. Some were helpful, others were annoying. There was mention that the previous renters were from AZ and they had the A/C running 24/7 which froze the a/c and supposedly caused a leak in the ceiling. She couldn't understand why people wouldn't want the ocean breeze blowing through the windows. As she is saying this I am literally dripping with sweat due to the humidity, temp and my obesity. I am thinking to myself, I'm going to crank these mothers to 70 as soon as you leave (they were currently off and it was 78 in the house).
She mentioned the previous people had the pool heated to 100 degrees and she was going to have to charge them extra because of the cost of heating the pool. I was told that the spa and the pool couldn't be heated at the same time and basically the spa lost water into the pool when the pool filter wasn't running which also meant you couldn't heat the spa to a hot temp when you were running the pool filter (I guess that is why the previous renters had it up to 100). I was told the spa/pool would be fixed the next day (Monday). She tried to show us how the trash compacter worked but it was empty and when ran it made some weird thumping noise so she said to leave it off and they would check into that on Monday too. They also had a 'rented' fridge in there b/c the regular built in fridge was broken.
This is going to be a long post....anyhow, we bought groceries stocked up what we needed and continued to enjoy our week. Couple of things I noticed...there was one roll of paper towels, nothing else in the house, one roll of toilet paper on the roller and an extra on the back tank. The first night of cooking we had leftovers. Could not find any aluminum foil or plastic wrap anywhere in the kitchen. I guess we need to supply our own? There was no shampoo, so we got our own. Bought our own laundry detergent and dryer sheets for laundry.
Monday the pool man stops by and says he needs to replace a valve, he'll be back in 1/2 hour. Owners husband stops by and checks out the trash compactor, all he did was turn it on, since we had put garbage in it, it seemed to work fine. I get a text from the owner to let her know if the spa empties.
Tuesday the family goes to Disney and I stay at the home to take it easy, pick up some of the above extra's at Target and maybe read a book. Spa has drained so I let owner know. When I am gone at Target, the fridge repair man comes over and lets himself in (he is related to the owner, so he knows how to get in the house) The owner texts me to let me know he is there. I get another text saying he used the whole roll of paper towels and a neighbor/handyman will bring some more over until she can bring some later. The fridge repair guy is there for about 6 hours. The pool guy was supposed to come and fix the spa but he is a no show. I am asked to check the newly repaired fridge the next day to see if it is getting cold and generating ice. No problem. BTW the fridge stunk like a mo fo being unused and probably dirty for so long.
Wednesday - supposedly the pool guy was coming in the morning. Never saw or heard from him. Was texted later by the owner that said the pool guy came by twice and we were out in the pool enjoying it so he'll come back on Thursday morning. I guess that is ok but to me morning is before noon and we didn't go out into the pool till 12:45 and we were out by 2:15 so I guess he stopped by twice in an hour and a half but didn't fix anything. The repaired fridge is getting cold, but it is not making ice and the rented fridge stopped making ice. There are no manual ice cube trays to make ice and I don't think the rented fridge/freezer gets that cold as the ice cream bars we bought on Sunday are barely staying on the stick they are so soft.
Thursday - Told that the handyman will come over and hook up the water line to the repaired fridge- the pool guy showed up and we are finally able to use the spa and heat it to spa temps.
Friday - a peaceful day no interruptions
Saturday - ditto to Friday.
Sunday - get a text, "when are you leaving so I can come clean"?
I forgot to add that the A/C unit on the kitchen side of the house didn't work. I think the Freon was gone as I turned it on and it didn't blow cold air the whole time we were there. It wasn't frozen as the unit had been turned off for over 24 hours. I didn't want to call the owner on it due to the comment she made when I got there. In hindsight I should've called as it put a mild damper on the vacay as the kitchen generated heat from cooking and the t.v. room where most everyone gathered was in the same area (open floor plan).
Sorry for the long post but I just wanted to get a feeling from people who have used VRBO or Homeaway or whatever if that is the norm? It felt like we were pretty much interrupted our whole stay and didn't have full 100%use of the spa (not that it was a big deal). I was expecting to be greeted by maybe the owner or property manager, told a few things then left alone till after checkout time on the last day (not that we would be there since it would have been after checkout time). Maybe a text 1/2 way into the vacay asking how things were but nothing like we experienced. Too much to expect?