First bad experience with renting a house for summer vacation was this summer with our rental through Reed Real Estate. We were looking for beachfront, decking across the back to sit and enjoy the waves and relax, and being away from the crowds. Oh Me By The Sea looked perfect (on their website), especially that there were no houses close to us on the west side of the house, so we could enjoy unobstructed views of the beach and water. I'm sure it says somewhere in the small print of the contract that the homes may not be as they appeared on their website, but I didn't read all that carefully (lesson learned). We booked the house in March for our July vacation. Our granddaughter flew in from Seattle and we all arranged time off from work for that week. Within a few weeks of our arrival, a new home was started on the west side of our house. By the time we arrived a construction crew was working on the 2nd floor framing (at the level of our quiet, peaceful deck. So, at 7:00a.m. each morning we were awake, because of hammering, sawing, men yelling, a bobcat going back and forth with a loud motor and constant beeping, and sawdust covering our deck and porch. Our complaint was that we felt that we should have been informed that this was happening and that it would affect our vacation. We probably would have been more understanding of the situation if we had known prior to arriving. But, not a word from them, not even when we stopped by their office to pick up our keys. They let us find when we drove up to the house. Of course, they say that they cannot control what is happening next door to the property or when a owner decides to build or remodel their home. When we complained we were told that there were no other homes available that we could move to, so our options were to leave, or stay and deal with it. Since we had planned this vacation for months and scheduled our time around that week, we felt we had no choice but to stay and deal with it. The homeowner did call and offered a one day refund (which we accepted, but would have gladly given back if it made the problem go away). But, we felt that Reed Real Estate didn't really care about us as renters. No one even came out of their offices when my husband went to complain. Needless to say, we will never book through them again, and I hope this review helps you with your rental process. We did make a video of the construction and noise and tried to put it and a negative review on their Facebook page, but you will not see it there. They control what is allowed on their Facebook page and you will only see positive comments there. They did send me a private message in response with the same things that they told us that week, that they had no control over what happens next door to their properties. We just wanted them to understand that what they did have control of was ""information"", and their choice was to not to share that information with us.
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