Pam Harrington Exclusives - Real Estate Sales — Local services in Kiawah Island

This unit is bug infested. Throughout our stay, the number of bugs and size of the bugs grew increasingly worse. We understand bugs are common on Kiawah Island and killing a bug or two inside a property isn't unusual, so we did not bring this problem to management's attention immediately. The last two nights we killed about 30 bugs and 3 were cockroaches/Palmetto bugs. I called the rental office to report our concerns and asked to be compensated for our inconvenience. The woman grew very defensive and stated we did not give them a chance to fix the situation. I explained we were on vacation and trying to enjoy our stay. We also did not want to be further inconvenienced by a potential move or extermination service coming into the unit. The woman I talked to said she would talk to management and email me. After waiting a week for her email and receiving none, I had to call the office back. Also, when we arrived the flowers in the vase on the table were dead and wet laundry was left in the washer. This company is unprofessional and unwilling to make things right with their clients. We have been visiting Kiawah Island for many years and will take our business elsewhere and rent from Kiawah Resort in the future. I noticed the last review for this unit on the Pam Harrington site was written in May and all the reviews are high, so I am guessing others have shared similar concerns and poor reviews, and Pam Harrington Exclusives internally filters these reviews and chooses to only publish good reviews...

Kiawah is gorgeous and the two houses that we rented through Pam Harrington Exclusives were both beautifully appointed but the management group is exceedingly difficult to work with. After months of planning for a large reunion that required 2 neighboring houses, we received notification that one of the houses would no longer be available because "the owners decided to use the home for their personal use." This meant splitting our group. After two stressful days of negotiations, we were relocated to two new houses that were within close proximity but the capacity was smaller because there were fewer actual beds. We rented one 6 bedroom and one 5 bedroom house, 11 bedrooms total for 8 families - there was plenty of room, especially with the sleeper sofas. A portion of our security deposit was withheld because of the size of our group and because we did not remove the trash after upon exit. Kiawah is a luxury resort and these are luxury homes; is it reasonable to withhold security deposit for not removing trash, especially when that requirement is not included on any printed check out list? Ms. Harrington was upfront that the move to the new homes would cost her money, it sure feels that she attempted to recoup a portion of that by withholding a portion of the security deposit. We were excellent stewards of the properties, shoes were removed before entering, bedtimes were early, and our days were spent on the beach. I will never rent from Pam...

We have already had 2 bad experiences and haven’t even checked into our property yet! We were initially called while traveling that our property had wood rot and a portion of the property wouldn’t be available for use. They didn’t offer any accommodation for this inconvenience and acted like it was no big deal. However, the owner was in the property and didn’t want to inconvenience themselves and fix it while they were there. Yet, come to find out this wasn’t even the place we were renting. We had to tell them this.

Then we arrive at our actual rental at 4:20 for a 4pm check-in and it isn’t ready. The rental agency told us the unit was ready. But when we arrived after the check-in time the cleaners told us it would be an additional 25 mins. We had recently stopped at the store, had cold groceries and couldn’t even put them in the refrigerator because they said they needed to clean it. We called the company again just more excuses. We have stayed at Kiawah several times with another company and had good experiences. I offered them a service recovery opportunity and no significant care was shown. Interestingly if you check in early they say:

“Early arrival or late checkout, when available, is subject to a 1/2 day charge plus taxes and fees”

Yet, when they don’t have the property ready on time, oh well.....

Will not use this company again. We want someone who cares more about the client...