My friends and I were scheduled to rent this property from May 16th through May 19th. Upon arrival, the home smelled stale and obviously had not been prepared for our group. The carpets throughout were beyond filthy, and especially so in the kitchen/dining area. As I continued my cursory inspection, I heard a smoke alarm beeping on the third floor/bedroom area, which I thought was as a result of a dead battery. At that point I tried to call the owner, who did not answer my call, so I sent a text message. While I waited for a response, I continued to look around and found scuffed up walls, cracked ceilings, and bathroom floors so dirty that the soles of my shoes stuck to them.
One of our group (all of whom are over sixty years of age) went to get a battery for the nonworking smoke alarm. When she returned we attempted to change the battery which had to be done by climbing on a chair--not the safest for senior citizens. Upon removal of the old battery, we found that there were no contacts for the battery, and in fact, the smoke detector was purposefully left in a nonworking condition.
When I finally got in touch with the owner, he tried to excuse the condition of the property by telling me that "it's really outside of the season" to which I replied, "You took our money months ago. You had plenty of time to prepare for our stay." He then went on to tell me that the transmission died on his car and there was nothing he could do to remediate the issues with the house because he had to work and couldn't get down to the property until that Sunday. My friends and I decided that were didn't feel comfortable or safe in the property in its condition and we informed the owner that we wished to leave. All of this transpired within an hour of our arrival at the property.
The owner promised that we would get a full refund and made the partial refund finally on Sunday, from Thursday. I informed him that he shorted us $59.00, which he promised he would remedy. I have not heard from him since, nor has he responded to my message.
I have rented from Home Away many times now, and in various parts of the world and have never been even remotely disappointed. This property and its owner are the exception, but with that said, I would stay far away from this one. It isn;t worth the aggravation.