Vacasa told us to expect to receive access information to our rental unit between 3:45pm – 4:00pm for our 4pm check-in. We arrived at the condo at 4pm with no information received from Vacasa. We called them and after the guy checked with others while on the phone he came back and said the information was sent by email and text. I told him I received no text and no email and confirmed that while on the phone with him. We finally received the information while on the phone at 4:15. The instructions were so bad, it took us a half hour to figure out the key codes and locate the lock box which was back in an unlit dark corner of the house. We finally got in at 4:45pm.
We took a quick tour of the home to find a large dead mouse in the master bath whirlpool tub with numerous droppings. The refrigerator freezer was totally frosted up to the point where the ice maker could not work. One of the guest bathrooms had what appeared to be vomit spray around the garbage can where someone must have missed. It was very obvious that this house was NOT properly cleaned before our arrival. We contacted Vacasa and within a couple of hours the mouse was removed, the droppings were cleaned up, the freezer frost was half cleaned up – not the ice maker and the vomit was not cleaned up. The cleaning person told us that the cleaning fee of $209 would be refunded to us.
We subsequently also found that the hot tub in the patio area was filthy – lots and lots of white scum floating in the water - gross. This hadn’t been cleaned for weeks, or months. The front entry light to the house did not work so it was difficult to see the key pad to punch in the code each time and insert the key. The master bedroom toilet would run periodically throughout our stay – the second night it ran every 7 minutes for two hours straight. I tried to turn the water source off so we could at least sleep at night, but it was rusted shut. The two lamps which was the only light in one of the other bedrooms did not work. I found two loose bulbs on top of the laundry closet and tried those – luckily they worked. The refrigerator freezer part of the side-by-side leaked during our stay – probably from all of the frost -so we kept a towel on the floor to keep this mopped up. I reported most of these additional items on our second 24 hours there, and didn’t get a response until over 24 hours later when we were touring Joshua Tree National Park – no cell signal. By the time we got back that evening, we were already leaving the next morning.
After we checked out of the house on our last day, I received a call from Vacasa telling us they would refund the cleaning fee of $209, the hot tub fee of $60 and would round up the total refund to $450 for all of the other issues. A total of $450 out of $3,000 we paid for the four days. That’s all – I was expecting a lot more. Well it gets worse. We have received Nothing so far. I have called the representative Alexa who promised us the refund the last two days and she has not returned my call. We have had very good results with VRBO and Airbnb. This was our second time with VACASA and it will be our last. We will be reporting this situation to the City of Palm Springs and the California Attorney General. Vacasa should not be allowed to operate in this state when they perform like this.