We booked this property for a long weekend with four adults and two two-year-olds. The location is great, and it has plenty of space for a big group. Communication was quick and check-in was easy.
This is clearly a well-loved family property that is occasionally rented to outsiders. It's not a luxury getaway spot (nor is it marketed as such). So far so good.
Here's the problem: there were multiple maintenance issues -- severe enough to have caused us to book a different property had we known that they existed. When we reported these to the owners, they acted as though they were no big deal, even though the issues weren't communicated in advance and they weren't resolved during our stay.
For example, the house only has one bathtub, which had a big "DO NOT USE" sign in it. We spent the first three days of our trip awkwardly showering our two-year-olds in the phone-booth-sized shower. The owner said that the tub would not be fixed for months, and eventually told us to disregard the sign and to use the bathtub anyway, but not to fill it too full. When I asked for a discount to accommodate how difficult it had been for us to wash our kids in the tiny shower, the owner offered a small refund, then didn't deliver on it. When I asked her about it later, she sent me HALF of the amount she had offered, claiming that since we eventually were able to bathe our kid in the bathtub on the last day, she wasn't going to send the full amount.
Or, take the main bedroom upstairs, whose heater didn't work. We tried for 45 minutes to get the pilot light to stay lit, but it wouldn't stay on. When we reported this to the owner, she said "That one doesn’t work." I mean, yeah, we figured that out, but it would have been nice to know before we spent our limited vacation time on troubleshooting home maintenance.
Again, I get that this is a family property, and I wouldn't expect everything to be perfect. But I do expect to be notified of significant maintenance problems! I got the distinct feeling that the owner was irritated that I was complaining at all.
Ultimately, we enjoyed our trip and appreciated the place, but would have preferred more accurate information up-front to manage our expectations, or potentially book elsewhere with working heaters and functional bathrooms for our two families with small children.