Cottage atFoys Lake Montana

What a treat it was to have you as guests at the Sunshine Cottage at Foys Lake. Many good travels ahead.

For her reservation for one adult (no sister and brother-in-law), Tina showed up one hour before check-in time and immediately started searching for a problem. She filed a complaint with VRBO without communicating with us that there were no curtains for privacy, a perfect example of externalizing her inner negativity. When I pointed out to her that the windows indeed each had two curtains; the building is situated so that the only eyes who might look, whether or not the curtains were closed would be a raccoon; that in my 35 years of living here, I had planted trees between buildings in service to privacy; and that she was surrounded by an 8 foot deer fence and would be hard-pressed to find a safer place, she relented. That night I received a text that she felt better. Her complaint claiming that the place is a studio is not accurate in that the kitchen is a separate room. Regardless, the photos clearly show the layout of the cottage, which she could have clearly seen beforehand. Now she is reporting her hallucination that the sprinklers were on all night, as if that would have some impact on her stay. In fact, the sprinklers automatically run for 20-minute cycles so no area is affected for more time than that, and on the night of her company arriving with four vehicles, all the cycles were on the other side of the property. Revealingly, we were drawn to our window on the night her grandchildren visited by shrieks of delight to see them sprinting and frolicking with squeals of joy through one of the sprinklers on the other side of the acreage. They were accompanied by adults who all seemed to be finding the sprinkler fun the best part of their visit. During her stay she repeatedly (9 separate times) left our deer gate standing open; leaving us subject to predation and the destruction of our crops and harvests. She showed no capacity for respect for the one ground rule - close the gate behind you - when every other decent guest has closed the gate behind them with the electric fob provided. In the 14 years of offering the cottage as a vacation rental, no other guest has ever ranked the cottage as she has. We feel that her rating reflects her inner challenges with decency rather than any objective aspect of reality at the Cottage at Foys Lake. Her observations are so clouded by her challenges that her lack of objectivity should be discarded, and her misery mongering should not be spread to include the cottage.

Thank you for your feedback Deanna, We were alarmed to see you go, seemingly dissatisfied, when our strongest desire is always to provide a wonderful place for you to stay. So much of what one finds in the world depends on where focus is placed, and so I want to zero in on the three suggestions you made in your report. 1. We were surprised to find that the TV system had been re-wired, as it had previously worked through the winter and spring. Additionally, AirTV auto-downloaded an update that in effect disabled the service. After more than two hours on the phone, tech support was unable to correct the problem. So, we had to take another approach, but it’s all working with local channels and others and we have generated new directions to streamline the experience of all who follow. Thanks for the timely feedback. 2. I can certainly imagine that finding residue on some dishes would be disconcerting. Since the previous couple were otherwise very fastidious, and the fact that I had run all the dishes and silverware through my dishwasher two weeks earlier, I had not noticed that some dishes were put away without thorough cleaning. I will certainly check each time going forward. I sincerely apologize for missing the dish-residue, but wonder why you wouldn’t just use others in the stack of eight and allow me to meet your needs without unnecessarily punitive incursion to the reputation of the cottage. 3. Truly I’m sorry that your son found the hide-a-bed uncomfortable though surprised that you would forgo the option to let me know so I could provide a thick futon mattress that is otherwise hard to fit into the cottage. Other guests have actually commented on the comfort of the sleeper. I had no idea that this was the source of your disappointment in the cottage until after you were out the gate and no win-win options remained. We wish you had chosen to communicate the problems early on so that we could have taken corrective action as we, of course, have now. Sincerely, Lora