I booked this property as a short stop on our way home from FL, so we could stop for a few nights & celebrate my daughter's birthday rather than being in the car the entire day.
I contacted the owner with a question about automatic payment on the day it was due. He had no problems responding to that question, but the communication stopped there! I messaged the owner again on our arrival date telling him I had not received check-in info. I did not get a response as we were making our way there. We arrived around 8 pm and still had no check-in information or any way to access the rental. I messaged and called the number on VRBO several times, but no answer and option to leave a voicemail either. I then went to what appeared to be the office of the building and saw taped to the door an emergency number to call, but again no answer. We had been traveling for 8 hours and had no way to get into the condo that we had already paid for. After waiting an hour without any response, my husband decided to walk around the property to see if there was a manager on site. He did not find one, but happened to run into the maintenance man that was waiting for an elevator repair person to arrive. After showing the man our VRBO booking, he was kind enough to give us a master code to access the unit. I am absolutely appalled that I NEVER got a response from the owner. The ONLY reason my children & I were not left to sleep in our vehicle is because of the broken elevator and maintenance being there on a Saturday evening! In addition to the check in issues, once in the unit it was filthy! There were massive hair balls in both bedrooms, our feet were black within 5 minutes of walking around, and there were bugs. On the 2nd night of our stay a spider even crawled across one of the pillows in our bed. We ended up leaving a day early because we could not take the nastiness of this unit another night!
We have been renting through VRBO for over 7 years and I have NEVER encountered problems, let alone ones of this magnitude!!! Before leaving I contacted the owner yet again to notify him of the cleanliness issues and to let him know we were leaving a day early. Of course once again, no response. The owner never even had the decency to message and apologize for all the inconveniences, even after check-out!! I do NOT recommend booking with this owner or staying at the property. This was the absolute WORST stay we have ever had through VRBO!!!