The house is beautiful, comfortably furnished, and located across the street from several fantastic beaches.
Here were the problems we encountered:
1. The house was not clean.
a) It looked like the master bathroom had not been cleaned at all (toilet, bathtub, floors, walls, mini blinds). We notified the property manager who promptly returned the next day, but she dropped-off a vacuum cleaner, rags and cleaning supplies for us. She did not clean anything we could identify. My wife spent two hours cleaning the floors and master bathroom while my aunt spent an hour cleaning the kitchen and her bathroom before they were acceptable.
b) We understand geckos poop, but almost every chair, bedspread, pillow, couch and rug in the house had at least one gecko poop stain.
c) The house had been nicely repainted inside in the last year or two, but there was white paint dripped on the floors, fixtures and counter tops throughout the house.
2. Because of its location near Hilo airport, I asked the manager in advance if the airplane noise was bad. She said, “Because of the flight patterns, we rarely hear the planes. Wind shifts make the difference and sometimes they go overhead, probably once every few days.” While generally correct, we heard loud planes several times a day.
3. The house includes two large tanks of gas with instructions to switch to the backup tank if one runs out. Both tanks ran out within three days. The owner was very responsive and replaced them the next morning, but we went without showers (after a long 7-mile hike) one evening. Fortunately, dinner had just finished cooking when the gas ran out. Someone should have noticed both tanks were nearly empty. [The owners kindly bought us a bottle of wine for the trouble.]
4. Three of the smoke alarms in the house are missing or disconnected. I believe this is illegal — especially for a rental house.
5. We were asked to bring the garbage cans to the curb. We barely generated one bag of trash during our 5-day stay, but the three garbage cans were already full! Sadly, the recycling can was full of regular trash (not recycling.)
Many of these issues would be understandable in a $200-300 per night rental. We understand this is the middle of a pandemic, but at $600 per night (incl. fees), this house should be as clean as a hotel room. The manager is clearly milking this beautiful property for maximum income with minimum work.