Highlands Vacation Rentals — Local services in Highlands

We rented a home through airBnB called the Ivy House and to be fair, we did enjoy the house itself. However, the fees stacked up to being almost double what the rate would be for a three night stay. There was a very steep pet fee that had not been mentioned until after booking, cleaning fees, booking fees, and they even tried to charge an additional $45 to check in 2 hours early even know the house was ready to be checked into. I can deal with all of this as it seems happen fairly often these days. However, the Wi-Fi was down and the house was out of cell service range, so that means no tv, no internet, and no way to communicate with anyone outside the house without driving a few miles to get into cell range. We were there for my wife’s friends birthday and had our four month old baby with us, so her going out with her friends during the day and the evening when we had one car and no means of communication was a major inconvenience for us. The first evening I drove into town at 5 to download some books and tv shows on my iPad and received a couple messages from the staff asking if Wi-Fi was back. It was not and we found out it wouldn’t be looked at until Tuesday. They apologized but offered no other accommodation at that time. At 7:15 or so in the evening when I was putting my son to bed we got a knock on the door and it was the manager, Lori. She stated that “she’d been trying to reach me” which I thought was a very odd thing to say considering there was no possible way to reach me without coming to the house and if it was that big of a pain for her to reach us imagine the difficulties we had being there all weekend. Dogs ran outside and the baby was crying and I basically asked her to get to the point of why she was here. She then stated she had another accommodation to move us too. I had no choice but to decline because my wife was already out and I was in the process of putting my son to bed. We never did get Wi-Fi back and dealt with it. We got some texts Sunday night when I drove to town saying we had to be gone promptly by ten and anything later would not be tolerated, and to please start a load of laundry and the dishwasher. We did as we were asked, left the house spotless as we always do, and I simply asked for them to give us something in return for the MAJOR inconvenience of being in a house with no cell service when the Wi-Fi was down. They stated that they were not in control of the Wi-Fi so it wasn’t their fault and they had offered me an alternative location (at 7 the first night when they had know since 1 about the Wi-Fi). I honestly just want a service fee or a pet fee or 100$ of the nearly 1500$ stay refunded to show that they cared. I did not mind the Ivy House rental itself. This is a one star review for the customer service. I’ve been in the hotel business for many years and cannot imagine charging our guests for an early arrival if the room is ready or not compensating them in someway for an inconvenience that was out of there control and changes the value of rental. Not sure if they have used fake reviews or friends reviews to elevate their score as these types of company’s often do, but I believe every word of the negative reviews regarding customer service. They just didn’t seem to care enough about their guests, if they did more would have been done. I will not use highlands vacation...

I was very disappointed in my rental home, Estes cottage – Mirror Lake. In the title you would think the lake was very nearby, and it was not at all. I had to drive over half a mile to see the lake. The house was musty, and although it was clean enough in the inside, the outside had not been washed down from spiderwebs, debris, the yard was overgrown with weeds. It was not inviting or cleaned up at all. I called the rental company and they sent someone over to power wash the two doors. I wanted to switch homes, and was even willing to pay for a new cottage. This was a decorator’s cottage, so, while the inside was pretty, it had no view and was not near town. Also, it was perched atop a hill that had two private homes at the end, and a very steep drive up to this cottage, so it was very hard to walk around. I thought this cottage was very remote and I would never recommend renting it because of its location and lack of view. It did have one porch which looked out onto treetops, but the porch was dirty, moldy, dusty, and none of the cushions had been washed. Basically, this house was not ready to be on the rental program. The kitchen was a mess with most things thrown in cabinets...

Beautiful home but view obstructed by power lines, however it only declined from there. Upon arrival the previous guest review reported mice. The property manager said it was under control. Mice droppings everywhere, mice running across floor while sitting at breakfast, dirty laundry in closets, main room with king had a broken ac unit that flooded the upstairs hallway, reported this to management and they only made excuses. A large bright light in main hall will not turn off without remote that is broken so you must close all doors at night, trash pilled in garage was picked up by management, but stink remained. Nicely appointed but mice and droppings are disturbing not to mention unsanitary. Then there were the bees. 100s of dead and alive bees in one room. Many still alive and rolling on bed. The only room we could sleep in had horrible queen mattress. Looking forward to getting home to...