It’s possible that I booked the worst VRBO ever a couple of days ago for Thanksgiving break. We were in Lake Arrowhead with some extended family and decided we’d need our own space since we were traveling with a 5-month-old. I knew that we wouldn’t spend much time there, so I looked for something with beds and a bathroom…nothing fancy.
The problems began when we got to the house around 9:00pm and could not open the lock box for the key. My husband kept re-reading the directions and following them while in the cold and it wouldn’t open. We looked around for another lock box, we made sure we were at the correct location, we texted and messaged the manager repeatedly, but there was no answer. Then I noticed that the door next to the lockbox read, “manager.” So, I knocked on it worried that I would wake him since he hadn’t been answering our texts. An older man with a hump in his back opened the door and seemed to be expecting us.
I found it odd that he opened his door pretty quickly since he hadn’t been responding to our messages. He said that the code for the lockbox was something else, when he had just texted us the code earlier in the day. I asked for clarification and he said that I had the old code. Once we were able to get the key we realized that we were headed downstairs. He had rented out the bottom floor of his house to us.
After we opened the door we realized that there was a staircase leading to his part of the house right in the middle of our living room. It was simply covered with a curtain and had a sign above that read, “do not enter.” This didn’t seem secure to me.
Then we saw a door with a sign above that read, “refrigerator inside.” We opened this door to find a small refrigerator to the right and a wall of scary tools to the left. The tools mostly included saws, axes, and cutting shears. This was all getting pretty creepy.
We decided to get some sleep then head back over to the big house where the rest of the family was staying. We put chairs with heavy suitcases in front of the staircase and my husband and son slept with a hammer and ax they found in the refrigerator room.
The last straw for me was that the creepy manager above us wouldn’t not sleep throughout the night. He kept walking back and forth across the creaky cabin floors above. Therefore, I was not able to sleep. I kept thinking he was about to walk down those stairs and enter our portion of the house. I thought of ways I would protect my 5-month-old if he entered and hoped that the rest of the family would be able to protect each other somehow.
I have rented from VRBO many times and am typically satisfied with the accommodations and management. This was a different kind experience…one that better suits airbnb.