We’ve stayed in several vacation home rentals across the country. It’s hard to believe this house is rated 4.8. Maybe the Columbia market is more forgiving than others; however, I felt compelled to write this review in fairness to other VRBO stays that actually earned a nearly 5-star rating.
We rented this house for 6 adults and 3 small children to attend a family reunion. We were very disappointed with our stay as this house was extremely dirty, bug-ridden, had inadequate seating for the advertised guest limit, and in poor working condition.
The children slept downstairs but not very well as there were numerous noisy live crickets in the basement. We also found spiders between their bed sheets.
There were cobwebs throughout the house - in the closets, in the basement living quarters, in the windows, in the front porch eves, in the garage, everywhere. The air returns were filled with dust, in excess. The floors and baseboards were so filthy that when I dropped my pillow on the floor, I could no longer use it to sleep. I wish we could post our pictures. I read in a review reply from the host that she has a great cleaning crew and checked personally for spiderwebs. I would recommend re-evaluating the cleaning crew, deep-cleaning the house, and hiring an extermination service for regular maintenance.
A few of the doors did not shut, which was problematic trying to dress in the bedrooms. One bathroom door even had a sign, “Door does shut! Push in toward hinges. That darn humidity.”. If you must put a note on the door, something is wrong. To set the record straight, that door did not shut. Having lived in Columbia for 25 years, and having built the house across the street, humidity is not an excuse for doors not shutting. It is a reason to fix the doors. We had to use a suitcase to keep the doors from opening on their own.
In all fairness, we did not reach out to the host concerning these issues. In all fairness to us, we shouldn’t have had to. We were on vacation and the remedy for this house would require a deep cleaning, fumigation, and some carpentry work on the doors. Not something we could or should have to schedule while on vacation.