In almost a decade of vacation rental stays for work and fun, this was my first bad experience. It was a doozy.
Even before the plumbing disaster, there were problems. The place looked okay at first glance (just a little shabby and dusty around the edges), but we soon discovered it filthy under beds—a haven for hair, dust bunnies, an old makeup tube, and hair pins. Someone's old contact lenses were stuck to the night table. The kitchen drawers and cabinets were sticky and had crumbs. Pans had residual grease on them. The sheets in the guest house had not been changed from the last guest and showed remnants of a snack!! Needless to say, this place was far from "sanitized." It was disgusting.
Nevertheless, we were determined to have a nice beach vacation. We decided to be good sports—re-washed surfaces and all the dishes we planned to use and stacked them on the kitchen table to avoid putting anything back into the sticky cupboards. Luckily we’d brought our own sheets.
Then, on the day before our departure, we woke up to a gurgling noise and found the toilet overflowing and flooding multiple rooms. Sewage was also coming up from all of the drains--tub, sinks, washing machine.
Needless to say, we had to cut our week-long vacation short by a day and a night. The manager tried to blame it on us. This is after they admitted that they had recently had to change out some pipes!! Um, clearly there are major plumbing issues at this place.
Before leaving, we were faced with…
—4 hours of shoddy communication with the management company, who answered promptly but promised to keep us posted on when the plumber would arrive, but only did so after the plumber had already arrived.
—Sopping up the flood using our own cleaning supplies in order to reach and pack up our stuff while waiting for the plumbers to arrive
—Packing up while dodging the many workers who were walking through the sewage areas and tracking it around the house. A couple cleaners arrived, but the workers stayed hours longer than the cleaners and I feel terrible for the next guests, because the place was anything but sanitary!!
Once we got home, we had to wash and re-wash our clothes that were soaked in raw sewage.
The management offered to give us our $ back for the last night, which is laughable le, considering we couldn't even stay there, let alone the hassle of cleaning and moving . Stay away from this place and any place managed by Marbella Lane.