Family-Friendly 4BR with Pool & Game Room, 5 Mins to Beach!

We have owned this house since 2020 and thoroughly enjoy being hosts to guests from all over the world. Most of our guests have a great experience because we keep the house in great condition, the house is kept very clean, we have a great location, and we communicate very well with our guests if they have any questions or need help with anything at the house. What we ask from our guests is that they respect the property, communicate with us if something isn’t working, or requires immediate attention, and follow the house rules we have published with VRBO, and at the house. This guest had a bad experience with us this past weekend, but it was completely of her own making, and could have easily been avoided. She booked the house for 5 adults and 2 children, but what she failed to do was communicate with us that she was hosting a party at the house for her son’s birthday. Had she given us the details of her intentions prior to booking our house and notified us how many people and how many vehicles would be at the property to attend her party, we would have declined this booking and advised her to find a different house to accommodate her group. Instead, the party commenced on Saturday, in which we found 15-20 cars parked all over the grass at the property. The maximum number of vehicles allowed at the property is 4. We communicated with the guest, and with VRBO, over how uncomfortable we were with what was happening at the house, and that the rules of our house were not being followed. We gave the guest plenty of time to shut down the party and get the vehicles removed from the grass, but by 8:00 PM there were still vehicles on the grass, and our communications with the guest had broken down where both sides were clearly unhappy with the existing situation. We have the benefit of hindsight now that everything has passed, and we try to use every booking as a learning experience to improve our service and provide our guests with a great house during their stay. We’ve done very well so far with 80 5-star reviews on VRBO and many other positive reviews on other booking websites. However, our takeaway from this past weekend is a reminder that there is always an opportunity to do better. Going forward, we will be asking some follow-up questions when new guests book our house to find out more about the nature of the trip. This increased communication will hopefully prevent another incident like this past weekend from happening again. Although this guest will perceive us as the evil hosts that ruined her son’s birthday party, I hope she also learns a lesson from this past weekend. I hope that she communicates better with any homeowners who offer up their houses as short-term rentals, and respect their property more than she did with our property. This is NOT an easy business to be involved in and the last thing we want to have happen is for our guests to have a bad experience at our house. Best wishes to you and your family going forward.