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Have you had any Vacation Rental Nightmares?

Pauline

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I am reading an old Travel + Leisure magazine about Italy and in the article "The Beach, Italian Style" the writer and his family booked a house in Lerici (Liguria) through vrbo.com and when they arrived it was so horrible that they spent one night and then moved to something better that they found online that night. They wanted their dream trip to Italy!

I always say that you should give any vacation rental 24 hours to get used to it. I find that, because I book so far ahead and have so much time to think about it, I build it up in my mind to be the perfect, the best, the most interesting place I will ever stay. And on arrival the reality never lives up to my dreams. But after I get unpacked and get settled in, it starts looking better, usually.

But, we have walked out of places. Usually we stay for a few days and then make an early exit. One of our first Italy rentals was a very damp cottage in Tuscany, near Sovicille. We left a few days early. The dream apartment that I rented (through a reputable agency) on Lake Como had a barely working kitchen and a bedroom that filled with car exhaust from the very nearby highway. And a neighbor that screamed at us (but Steve eventually made friends with her). We left early, but only because the weather was horrible and Lake Como was flooding (in July!).

I can't think of any other disasters. Two out of 50+ (I think) vacation rentals in Europe isn't bad. All those years of posting vacation rental reveiws on SlowTrav I came across some disasters.
 
The only vacation rental disaster I had was in France - the infamous Dirt and Spider cottage in Honfleur. *shudder*
 
I remembered another one! A Holiday Resort on Monte Argentario, in Tuscany. It was June and we were the first renters for the season, and no one had cleaned since the end of the last season. Lots of dust, no gas for the stove. And the resort was pretty yucky. Lots of mosquitoes.

Colleen, I remember that trip!
 
I'm in the midst of a travel nightmare right now! I noticed that our rental in Venice (where Shannon and Deborah stayed and which they highly recommended) is no longer showing up on VRBO, so I emailed the owner. It seems that she has a problem with a "sinking floor" and will have to move us. If I don't get some info and photos of the new rental soon, I'll have to start looking, and it's late for April/May in Venice now. What a mess -- it does support the wisdom of using an agency. This really contrasts with the situation we had in Venice last time, when we rented through Views on Venice. Filippo (the owner of Views on Venice) emailed me after a few months (yes, I do plan ahead) that construction was occurring in the building where our rental was located and he was moving us back to the apartment in his palace where we had stayed before -- from an apartment costing 1500€/week (split with another couple) to one costing 2800€ -- AT NO CHARGE!
 
Sorry to hear you are in limbo Ann. Fretting about your rental takes the fun out of trip planning. But it's wonderful to hear about your positive experience with Views on Venice. :) I used them (oops! The green won't go away...) too and had a great rental and flawless service. Your upgrade must have been gorgeous.

I've been disappointed with some of my rentals but no real nightmares to report.

(Admin made the green go away.)
 
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I've had amazingly good luck with rentals over the years. Only a few were disappointing, and most were wonderful. I've used vrbo, homeaway, gites.com and several direct from the owner based on word-of-mouth recommendations. Two of the very best, one in Paris and one in the Loire Valley, resulted from recommendations from Ann (three posts up). I WISH I had a solution for her Venice problem, because I certainly owe her!!
 
Thinking back, our rentals in the last 10 yrs have been good. Before that we had some yucky places. I think vacation rentals in Europe have upped their game.
 
Plus there is so much more info available, and more photos in any kind of listing. I remember choosing soem rentals based on a few tiny dark photos. I wouldn't even consider a place now without lots of good photos...
 
Thanks for the kind words, Chris. And you don't owe me anything -- what are friends for, after all? BTW, how does the rental in Uzes compare to some of your other favorites?
 
I LOVED the Uzès rental, even though it's an exception to my many-good-photos rule! It's on four floors, with a small summer kitchen on the ground floor opening on to a private dining terrace in the back, a huge kitchen and a sitting area-library on the second floor, two large bedrooms and baths on the third, and the master bedroom and a private terrace on the fourth. The kitchen is fabulous. Elizabeth David wrote one of her cookbooks while living there and shopping the Uzès market. This one is really much better that its listing suggests!
 
We stayed with Chris in that Uzes rental and my main complaint was the on-site person. The check-in was done by a teenager (daughter of the on-site person) who spoke no English. The back garden was only set up with table and chairs etc. half way through our week.

We did another visit to Uzes later that year and stayed in a different house. In this one the check-in was top quality, but the house was not as fabulous.
 
Well last year, as some of you may recall, we spent 5 weeks in Nice. We spent hours finding the right apt through Nice Pebbles. When we got there, all seemed in order but after a week, what seemed to be scuff marks grew along with a horrible smell. We realised we had black mold growing up the walls. Quel disaster!! We had to get out fast.

Our rep for Nice Pebbles( who was the one who cleaned the apt) arrived pretty quickly. Well, after several calls explaining the situation. It was the eve of Carnival. Not many places left but Ron and I quickly took charge and found an apartment they could transfer us to and booked a hotel for the night. She came the next day and moved us.
We ended up in a nicer apartment than our original choice! One we couldn't have afforded. A paid hotel. All was well. One of the reasons I would prefer to rent from a reputable agency fora longer stay.
Having said that, for our longest stay ever 3 months, we are going on blind faith.
 

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