Last year we book a wine country home through HomeAway and it was perfect. Therefore we were very disappointed in the condition of this house. I hope makes its way to the owners, HomeAway and the property managers.
First of all I want to say that Justin and company in building #3 were very helpful and courteous. The 5 of us really loved the location, the peacefulness, the view, and the high surf. We plan to make Pajaro Dunes a regular vacation spot.
#98 was a well thought out house with plenty of room for us. I am disabled and it was comfortable for me though I didn’t want to attempt the walk to the parking lot more than once a day. We have a number of constructive criticisms that we hope you will think about. Besides just being worn out and shabby, which we didn’t object too loudly, it had a number of issues. We also didn’t object to the place needing painting, especially the kitchen which was down to the wood.
Kitchen - dishwasher was filthy and didn’t drain
cabinets were not lined and also dirty
needs bottle opener
kitchen counter cutting boards are unsanitary
coffee pot took an extraordinarily long time to fill which means it needs to be cleaned
Living room - needs 2 new upholstered chairs. The ones there were dirty and very worn.
needs binoculars that aren’t missing an eye piece
Bathrooms - towels were stained, thin, and terrible. Also no washcloths or bath mats. We bought kleenex for a couple of the bathrooms because there was only 1 in the house. We ran out of toilet paper which is really inexcusable. There were 5 of us in a place that sleeps 8.
Bedrooms - pillows, comforter and blankets need to be replaced. They were stained and very very old.
I was also resentful of the excessive fees. We paid over $700 for cleaning, tax, property damage protection, service fee and booking. That is almost half of the total. This is ridiculous and will lead me away from HomeAway in the future.
I have had a rental house in Tahoe for 30 years and I certainly understand how hard it is to keep a place like that in shape especially when things disappear or are damaged. However the above are common necessities. We use VACASA which isn’t perfect, but doesn’t charge these huge fees.
I/we hope this will help and again we love the location of Pajaro Dunes and the house.