It's unfortunate that there's no rating lower than one star. If you want to rent in Twain Harte and have a wonderful, relaxing vacation, stay away from Twain Harte Vacation Rentals. We had made a rental reservation a year in advance with Mr. Kevin Lesley, but he cancelled it a month before our arrival. We just happened to call him for another reason and found out during the phone call. We were left high and dry as there are no rentals in the summer, one month ahead of your arrival. He was not even apologetic at any time! We had to scramble to find another cabin. We contacted the other rental agencies in Twain Harte, and they had nothing available. However, they also shared that many of the towns’ residents find THVR's business practices to be 'questionable'.
We finally found an Airbnb outside of town and far away from our family members' cabins. We have been coming for over 60 years for our large family reunion, which takes place during the same two weeks every year. Throughout that time, none of us has had any issues with the rental agencies.
We had a stressful and upsetting time, as there was a lot of frustration dealing with Mr. Lesley. He works for Berkshire-Hathaway, managing property for them through THVR, which BH bought. We tried to work with them, but they were also rude, unapologetic, and stated they' had nothing to do with THVR' when they clearly did. When we went higher up in the BH Company, we found out that they were not being truthful. We have no idea why they would lie to us, unless they wanted to distance themselves from Kevin Lesley and not take on another of his wrongdoings to renters. We found three people while researching a way to get Kevin to compensate us, and discovered that they had never received their deposit back after years. They finally gave up, as he never responded or responded with odd, nonsensical reasons. Of course, none of them would ever rent from him again.
When we informed Mr. Lesley of information that we read on his own website, he appeared not to know what is posted on it, as if someone else created it. He even said , ‘The website did that’ or the ‘ The Website notified you’ or ‘the website didn’t tell you your reservation was cancelled’ as if it’s not his responsibility, but some entity out there called Twain Harte Vacation Rentals, and his name is on it though, he seems to not know of it or the have ability to use it.
We take one vacation a year and have never had it not be stress-free and fun for everyone. The Airbnb we rented cost considerably more, and it took a year of constant contact, including emailing, texts, and phone calls, for Mr. Lesley to pay us the difference. It was exhausting; we missed work, family occasions, and quality time with our loved ones. It felt like Mr. Lesley was trying to wear us down so we would give up our rights as renters of properties.
His behavior was so staggeringly egregious that we couldn't tell if he had some underlying problems or was simply incompetent. We couldn't believe it was purposeful, but maybe it was. We see in one of the Yelp reviews that he is referred to as a 'crook.'
If we had the time, energy, and funds, we’d sue him for lost wages, emotional distress, breach of contract, and misrepresentation of goods and services.
But we don’t, and we're exhausted and want to move on, and return to our beloved Twain Harte for our fabulous annual vacation that we’ve had for 59 years, excluding the summer that Mr. Lesley ruined it.
Obviously, we went with another rental company in Twain Harte for the following summer. There are three to four other great rental companies. Please use them. Just look online, and they all pop up.
We would hate for anyone to experience what we...
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