What was good
All the appliances worked, power was on, and no bed bugs. The kitchen was well stocked with spices, utensils, small appliances, etc. The home is decorated well and you can tell they invested in their bathrooms. The fireplace for smore's in the yard was nice and the grass was low so we were able to play in the yard. No mosquitos outside, which was a surprise. There are tons of light switches everywhere, you can spend lots of time trying to find the one you need! There was complimentary tea, but the good flavors were all gone. I left an item and Sara was nice enough to mail it back to me at no extra charge, which was beyond kind.
What was okay
The house is dark at night if you turn all the lights off. We brought extra night lights and left a couple on in case we needed to go downstairs. The hot water worked fine, but wreaked of Sulphur and was cloudy. There were not many games at all. Pictionary was warped probably from getting wet. There were cards, and Uno, but not much else to do. There is a closet of baby toys, but nothing for older kids, so come prepared. As my husband put it, "If your entertainment system requires 8 pages of laminated instructions, it's the wrong one!" We got it working, but the wi-fi was spotty. There was almost no view of the river as the brush has been allowed to grow up, so there was only one spot in the whole house that had any view, which was disappointing. There are a lot of antique chairs in the home. Some are rickety, but they do hold you. The ceilings upstairs have low door entry's and low beams. My husband is 6' 5" and hit his head on the rafters several times. We finally just decided to stay out of some of the rooms. There are also raised boards at the entry to rooms, making it easy to trip. So watch your head and your step.
What was bad
BUGS. Indoors, spiders under chairs (with spider eggs as a bonus), ants, and one's you will have to google to figure out. There are not just flying bugs from leaving a door open.
The bathroom in the "kids room" is scary. The door locks from the outside and the window is broken, so if your little one pushes it up it will slam back down almost instantly. Really dangerous for little fingers. Also there is no hand shower and the tub is a soaking tub. You'll need to bring a hand held shower attachment or bring a glass up from downstairs if you want to wash your child's hair. The other tub across the hall does not have a hand shower either.
DIRTY. There were three hairs on one of the pillow cases when we arrived. The kitchen tablecloth was also covered in crumbs. We shook the stuff out rather than calling and waiting for the grounds keeper. I had to wipe the kitchen cabinet fronts off with clorox wipes before I could cook because they had grease and stains all over them. Gross. Some of the pots/pans had also been put away dirty so I had to wash each one before using. We spilled water on the kitchen tile and grabbed a white towel to wipe it up. The towel came off the floor brown and gray. Clearly the place needs a good scrubbing.
POISON OAK growing along side the house. Yeah!
The pathway to the river is a death trap. It's steep and drops you on cinderblocks and rocks. Not cinderblock steps mind you, just randomly thrown blocks. Thankfully, there was a small tree to the left we were able to use as a handle to get down. However, neither me nor my children could get out once we got down there. If your short, you'll need a boost or you will have to crawl out. My son fell on the rocks by the river as well. They were not wet, just poorly laid out. THe staircase from the road to the grass could use some TLC as well.
It SMELLED on arrival. The air is turned off when it is vacant. We had to contact the owner to get it on. There was an odd smell in the kitchen on arrival and my husband's asthma activated. We walked around and checked out the house. Upon opening the basement door we were almost knocked over by a smell. He went down to look, but turned right around and told us all not to go down there. We then vacated the house for about two hours and let the air run. When we got back it was much better.
Overall, this is a nice old property. It is fine for a family trip, but a little pricey for the condition of what you are getting. I expected it to be cleaner and the grounds to be better kept. We ended up leaving a day early. Not really worth the money.
