I hadn't vacationed since mid-2019, so splurged on this property w/land for my dogs. I invited a friend I don't see often, we brought lots of food & planned to relax, hike, cook, & catch-up. We were in for a nasty shock.
But let's start with the good stuff:
The decks, fire pit, pond, & land were truly an amazement, far better than the description and photos. Those aspects of this property deserve 5-stars.
The Bad:
As soon as we opened the door to the kitchen area, we saw a problem. While the house appeared neat and clean, there were flies everywhere: table, stove, counters, refrigerator, sink, and windows. We checked for open windows, dead things, rotten food - we found nothing.
We did notice that the problem was primarily in the kitchen and centered on a very nasty, greasy, dust-caked kitchen fan. After killing several flies, I called the owners who told me that in 4 years they'd never had such a complaint and that they employed a good cleaning person. Since they seemed to doubt me, I sent photos, to which they responded: "yeah that fan is very dirty." I asked to have the cleaning person come clean the fan, but was told that wasn't possible.
After killing several more flies, we drove to the market for glue traps. Those caught several dozen more flies, we killed many more, but they still kept coming. Now it's late, we are starving, but uncomfortable exposing food to the flies. Again I called the owner, who offered to buy us dinner & send US to yet another store the next day for a fly zapper--but not to address the cleanliness of the fan. The next day, the fly situation was much worse & after many texts I realized that no matter what I said, the owners were not going to have the fan cleaned. So, I climbed onto the counter, my friend handed up cleaning solution soaked Swiffers (b/c the dry ones just got stuck on the gunk), and I cleaned the fan in my very expensive rental. And then we cleaned the floors, chairs, and counters, too, b/c of the nastiness that came off of the fan.
We arrived Sunday afternoon, I cleaned the fan Monday afternoon, and by Tuesday afternoon, the problem was noticeably better. We changed the glue traps again on Wednesday, and when we left Friday morning, they each had about 12 flies on them. So better, but not gone. There were many other cleanliness issues, but suffice to say, the house was neat, but not clean, and certainly not the kind of clean it should be during a pandemic.
The owners returned the cleaning fee.