After vacationing in this area for the last 20 years, our go-to house had been sold, forcing us to look for an alternative. Our only "must-have" is a hot tub. We had high hopes for this location based on the reviews, but unfortunately we were notified 24 hours before our trip that the hot tub was not working. After finally being able to speak to the owner (his voicemail was full), we found out that he had known about this well before the day he had told us about it, leaving us no time to cancel and find a new location, which we would have been able to do if we were at least warned that it was not working and he was attempting to find someone to fix it when he found out about it.
The house itself was fine, however was not cleaned prior to our arrival. The fireplace was filled with ash, the floors hadn't been swept/vacuumed - there was old pasta and dirt on the kitchen floor, etc... paying a lot for a cleaning fee, we'd expect it to be cleaner than it was.
The owner did offer to refund the hot tub charge since it was broken and told us that if we booked again for next year, the charge would be waived and would "guarantee" a working hot tub, however shortly after, communication went quiet while trying to get the refund, leaving several unanswered messages through VRBO.
I contacted VRBO directly to attempt to get the refund. They read through my messages and confirmed that the owner had not replied to any of my several messages over the last week. They reached out to him directly and gave him 48 hours to respond.
After 24 hours, the owner finally responded asking for my address of where to send the refund check, to which I immediately sent it over. I was hopeful this would be over soon. Not so.
A week had gone by with no sign of the check. I reached out to the owner again to see when it was sent out and was told it was sent out the day I had given my address. After waiting another week, still no sign of the check.
I messaged again to ask where the check was and if it was easier to send it via Venmo, paypal, etc... the owner replied again asking for my Venmo (which basically proved to me he was lying about ever sending out a check). I sent him my Venmo immediately. Another day went by and there was no sign of a Venmo refund...
Eventually the refund came through VRBO on the card that was used to rent the property.
TL:DR: House was ok, do not rent if you are looking for a working hot tub or good owner communication.