The Castle at Lakeside

The reader really needs a back story here on why we are getting a bad review. Megan and family rented the house for just under 48 hours; Friday afternoon until Sunday noon (May 16). They left right before we arrived, and we spent the rest of Sunday at the house. So up to that point, everything had seemed fine. No complaints from the renters. The house was in good condition. As we were locking up the house with the kids loaded in the car, I discover that I cannot find the house key. So I texted Megan asking about it. Not understanding her answer, I called her for clarification. Apparently she took the key to a rental agency lock box inside Lakeside, but she didn’t know which one. Her vagueness as to which rental company made me skeptical. She knew that we were going to arrive as they were leaving. Rather than leave the key in the house, she took the key to an “unknown” rental company which I later discovered was a vacant building with a large sign on the door stating “This Rental Office has been relocated to the Administrative Offices at 236 Walnut Street”. Yep, you read that correctly. She left our house key (that she picked up at our home) at a vacant building. But I didn’t find this out when I spoke to her on Sunday; she couldn’t recall. It wasn’t until Monday night that she finally told me WHERE she left the key. OK so now I can quit calling the other rental agency and focus on this one. When I questioned why she did that, considering that I gave her the key and she was working directly with the homeowner, Megan turned it around and said it was my fault for not communicating what to do with the key. The rental agreement states to give it back to the owners. At this point Megan has called and texted me multiple times asking about facilities at the house, can we unlock the shed, can they drive our golf cart, can they have a late check out, etc. So in other words, Megan knows how to get ahold of me if she wants to. She could have asked about the key if unsure. She also claimed that the key chain said to return it to a rental agency. No idea what she is talking about. There are NO INSTRUCTIONS on the key chain. We have used this same key chain for 7 years and no other renter has ever taken our key to a lock box. It doesn’t even make sense. Seriously, did she really think I have access to a lock box that belongs to a rental company? There was no note in the house telling her to take keys to a different location. We don’t ever use a rental company; we use VRBO. Furthermore, she knew we would be arriving within minutes of their departure. How did she know that we would be arriving soon? Because when she asked at 8AM to extend her stay until noon I replied with “that is fine. But we will need access to the driveway because we are bringing a large trailer around 11:30”. She went out of her way to avoid giving us the key back, knowing that we would be arriving before they left or soon after. Very suspicious behavior. Until I actually located the key, I was quite suspicious with her story. They rented the house for less than 48 hours, yet it took 9 phone calls, the kindness of a stranger and nearly a week before I got the key back. And WAIT FOR IT… nowhere on the key chain did it list a rental company with instructions to return to them!!!!! I scoured the house looking for any evidence that would indicate that we wanted our house key taken to a third party. Never found it. But I did find a note left by the renters indicating that they had other family also staying at Lakeside. Maybe the house the other family was renting had a key with those instructions. And that makes sense because anyone who has rented a home at Lakeside is familiar with the process of check in and check out when you rent from either of the two rental companies there. You pick up the house key at their office at check in, and you return the key to their office upon checkout. I’ve done this myself when I’ve rented homes there. So apparently that is a procedure that Megan is familiar with and that is exactly what she did. Except she did not pick up the key at a rental company; she got the key directly from us. The ONLY address on the yellow key tag is our home address handwritten with a sharpie marker. I wish I could post a picture of the key chain here to show, but VRBO does not allow a pic in the reviews. So her whole story of “I was just following the instructions on the key chain” is a bald face lie. This also explains why in 7 years no other renter has ever done this!! Megan- just own your mistake and move on. I did. In the end, we got the key back and all is good. Not only did Megan offer zero help in locating the key that she misplaced, she actually started harassing me with multiple texts when I told her on Wednesday “I have still not been able to locate the house key.” I thought she might express a tad bit of concern. Maybe make a phone call or 2 to help me. NOPE. Instead I received 6 messages threatening to leave a bad review and telling me how this was all my fault and “short of calling off work and driving several hours to fix your miscommunication” she didn’t understand how she is at fault. Her final text “It’s like you expect me to drive up there and fix this.” That is exactly what I had to do to retrieve the house key that I gave her. Not once did she apologize or express any concern for the situation. You can see in her review that she is angry and vindictive and continues to blame us for her lack of common sense. I’m not really sure why she is angry; I’m the one who wasted so much time trying to retrieve our house key. We ended up changing the locks because of her. And she got 100% of her security deposit refunded. It is true that I made a mistake and locked the shed by mistake when I left the day before. However, I did correct my mistake by driving up there (2 hours) to unlock the shed for them. It was the last thing I wanted to do on a beautiful Friday afternoon in May, but I did it anyway. I even considered paying for them to rent bikes at Sypherd’s Cycles, but they were not open for the season yet. Unlike Megan, I own my mistakes and fix them. Even if it is inconvenient. Was she appreciative? You decide. Her review suggests she was not. She told me that they were entitled to those bikes and furthermore, the bikes weren’t good enough for her family. What did she expect when she asked if they could borrow the bikes 2 months before check in and I replied in a text “The bikes are not great quality, but you are welcome to use them.” They brought their own, but wanted extras. With the exception of having to wash her own laundry, I’m not sure how Megan experienced ANY inconveniences with her weekend stay. Hopefully, the Woolums have survived the trauma of “waking up and dragging my entire family out of bed so I could wash the sheets…it was miserable and very inconvenient”. You knew the rules before you arrived. Don’t sign a rental agreement and then complain about the terms AFTER the fact. No where does it say you cannot bring your own sheets to avoid this torture. In fact, it is the Lakeside tradition that renters bring their own sheets to homes or rent them from the local rental company. Not only do we provide all sheets and towels, we also provide newer laundry facilities, laundry detergent, and fabric softener. Not sure what there is to complain about. And if our laundry facilities are so inconvenient, she should have used the laundromat to wash her 4 sets of sheets. Ironically, the laundromat is located next to the vacant building where she left our key. Honestly, if she had indicated that she needed extra time to finish laundry, I would have happily offered to assist (as I have done so many times in the past). Megan is one of those people that no matter what you do you cannot please her. You can bend over backwards trying to accommodate her, only to have her kick in you in the stomach and leave you a bad review. Nowhere in her review does she express any appreciation that we gave her an early check in or a 2 hour late check out for her convenience. Nowhere in her review does she acknowledge any of the responsibility for the lost key. On the contrary, she was the victim of terrible home owners expecting to get their house key back. Granted, she does acknowledge that we drove 2 hours to unlock the shed. But in true Megan form, she complains about that too. Always the victim…