The perfect home in a perfect location in Washington

Great for families!

kendra813 (dayton, Ohio)
Review submitted: October 24, 2010   Date of arrival: October 16, 2010

Stayed at this house in October 2010 with a large group including 6 kids. We thouroughly enjoyed staying here. The metro is a 10 min. walk with nice sidewalks. There is a beautiful grocery store(Whole Foods) on the way for picking up items on the way home. There are many restaraunts within walking distance...Subway, Chic-fil-A, McDonalds, Macaroni Grill, and many more!
The house is very spacious with many levels for spreading out. There was plenty of hot water for showers and the washing maching worked well. The kitchen was fully stocked and we cooked lots of meals there. The water dispenser on the fridge was tricky and we ended up buying a gallon of drinking water, there were very few trash bags and rolls of toilet paper, and we didn't have any extra towels(just enough). Also the dishwasher was wobbly and we had to get instructions from the owner on how to get it working but he was available quicky and pleasant/helpful. Those were the only issues I'd recommend being prepared for.

Recommended for: adventure seekers, age 55+, families with young children, families with teenagers, girls getaway, sight seeing, tourists without a car, romantic getaway

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Helpful votes: 9 / 9

Vacation stay the week of June 14th, 2010

midgeyosemite51 (Merced, Ca USA)
Review submitted: July 10, 2010   Date of arrival: June 14, 2010

We stayed 8 days and it was a beautiful house. The house is within walking distance to the Metro, shopping, etc. Christian was available when we called. The neighborhood was safe. On our orignal contract, only the occupancy dates were listed. There was no check-in or check-out time listed. On the morning of our date of departure, the cleaning person showed at 10 a.m. while we were packing. She told us that she was to start cleaning immediately because another family was coming. Out the side door was the other family complete with groceries. When we called Christian, he told us that he assumed that we knew check out time was 10. We indicated that it was not on the contract. We talked to the incoming family who was initially scheduled to arrive at 3:00 p.m. but found out they were going to arrive earlier. Christian told them that it was o.k. to be early. Had we been forewarned, we would have been packed and out. The incoming family was gracious as I hope we were. It was very awkward. Also, it looks as if the house was just painted and all of the wall hangings were still on the floor and the dishwasher was not connected. It was a very nice house and a great neighborhood. The rental contract needs to be specific.

Recommended for: families with young children, people with disabilities, families with teenagers, girls getaway, sight seeing, tourists without a car

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Helpful votes: 19 / 19

Nice place. deceptive description. difficult owner

Jessica (Washington, DC)
Review submitted: July 9, 2010   Date of arrival: May 30, 2010

1. The "quick facts" section says that there is a pool and hot tub. There is neither pool nor hot tub at the house, nor within walking distance of the house. It took us over an hour of driving around to find the public pool, and when we found it, we learned it was only open on weekends. This was a big disappointment for us, as it was a major factor in our choosing this house. I imagined our family all able to hang out poolside together at the house - an activity that all ages could share in on site. The owner argued that if we had read the fine print of the website, we would have seen that other references to the pool say "community pool."

2. It says metro is 5 minutes away, but it's actually 15 (see google maps). That’s a big difference for some age groups and for all ages in the summer!

3. The power was shut off halfway through our visit. The utility tech told us that the owner hadn't paid the bill in three months. Power was out for a full day and night. This meant no AC with temps in the high 80's. Some of our food perished. We couldn't cook or spend much time in the house. The owner had an hour's warning about the shutoff (in addition to whatever letters he got from the utility before that), but he did not pay the bill within the hour to forestall the power being turned off, as instructed.

He brought some candles over to the house, but when we asked for some portion of a refund he was aghast. He wasn't the least bit apologetic, and in fact acted as though the power outage was an unavoidable act of nature, completely remedied by the candles. He argued with us for twenty minutes (in the dark), and in the end offered only $150 discount. Later, he rescinded this offer, saying we had broken the dishwasher (the dishwasher was broken by the power outage).

4. Dealing with him was generally unpleasant - the most difficult of any vacation renter we had experienced. Very defensive and argumentative, condescending and short with us. We arranged for him to meet us at the house at around 7pm on our arrival date to let us in. He asked that we call him an hour beforehand. We called his office several times, but only got voicemail. We arrived and kept calling. After a couple hours, a neighbor's called his cell for us. When he called back he was very angry we hadn't called him on his cell. We explained that he hadn’t given us that number but he was only defensive. Then he said he'd be there in within 15 mins, but didn't show up for 45.

Nice house tho

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Helpful votes: 52 / 52