Gulf Coast Vacation Rentals — Local services in Venice

Rented a villa in Cape Coral, which was a holiday we had saved up for and looked forward to for over a year. At the time of booking all was good, easy & straightforward. We paid our deposit and thought nothing more of it. It wasn’t until after the hurricane in October that I noticed things started getting a little strange. The villa completely disappeared from the website, I emailed 3 times over the next 2mths, not wanting to hassle them as we knew they would be extremely busy, but we were curious as to whether or not we needed to find another villa in case the one we had booked had been damaged. Eventually I had to ring them to get any kind of response. Apparently all was fine and the villa would be ok for us to stay in, in June. We then heard nothing until April when I had an email from the saying they would be taking the balance from my card. Unfortunately I had needed to order a new card so the number wasn’t correct, and again, I sent 3 emails, all of which were ignored, asking for someone to contact me as I needed to give them new card details. Again, I had to call them to get any kind of response. I did at this point have reservations as to whether the villa even existed!! Eventually holiday time came, and we had been sent details of an app we needed to download for all the access codes - this did not work and I had to again ring them to get the door code to gain access to the villa. Once in, the villa was beautiful, but very hot and the air conditioning would not cool to anything below 75*. The owners car was locked in the garage so we couldn’t access that, and their boat was moored to the dock - something that the villa advert said we could have access to, if we wanted to hire our own boat - something we were looking forward to doing. And the pool……… well on first glance it looked beautiful, apart from the fact that it clearly hadn’t been cleaned. A film of dirt and bugs completely covered the surface and the bottom of the pool was covered in grime. We called again, to say that the pool hadn’t been cleaned and the filter wasn’t working, to be told that the pool had most definitely been cleaned as it was every Monday without fail, and there wasn’t anything wrong with the pool filter at all. The guy on the phone asked us to send over some pictures which we did. By this time it was getting late and there were no pool lights so we decided to wait until the morning. In the clear light of day the pool was disgustingly, so again we called the office and the guy on the phone, upon receiving the photos, agreed that he wouldn’t let his children in it. He was going to arrange for someone to come out and would sort some kind of compensation for the disruption. We then waited for the following Monday thinking we would have a quick chat with the pool guy when he came to clean the pool, but surprise, surprise, also another no show. Something I doubt takes place at all. Despite numerous emails to the office, we are still to this day waiting for a phone call back. None of our emails have been responded to and they have completely washed their hands of any issue. After arriving we discovered that the villa is now managed by another rental company, who we did pay a visit to, and whilst they couldn’t do anything to help, made a note of all the issues we had. Surprisingly, the email have received this afternoon to give feedback doesn’t work!!!! So in a round up, don’t use Gulf Coast Vacation Rentals for your once in a lifetime holiday, as they are happy to take your money, but in no way happy to help...

This company is truly amazing! They managed to take our highly desirable vacation rental and turn it into a net loss for us as the owner, and a gain for them all while responding to every complaint with the best gaslighting I've ever witnessed (see all of their responses to negative reviews for a sampling). This business model is to be admired if you are a shareholder. It's not so great as the property owner. Next time I want to replicate the experience I will destroy my property, set a pile of money on fire and then tell myself none of that actually happened.

EDITED TO ADD: That is the response I was expecting. The use of a natural disaster as an excuse for a complete lack of screening is a joke. I was told "people need housing" as though Gulf Coast is just a group of humanitarians. After discussions with the sheriff, the HOA president, and numerous complaining neighbors we learned that at least 8 workers were living in our 2-bedroom condominium. Our garage was filled with construction equipment and the door was broken in the process (to the tune of a $1,600 repair - thanks for the $200, by the way, that was cute). We were not compensated at all for the items that were stolen from us during the "eviction" process. Despite being told this was a one-off due to the chaos of the hurricane our final tenant completely destroyed all of the carpets during a one-month stay that was well past the hurricane. Again, we were responsible for coordinating the repairs. I could have blindly rented to every person who clicked a VRBO link without paying a 20% commission in the process. The point of a management company is to make our lives easier even if we have to pay a premium for it. We were willing to do that until trying to get what was due to us just to be made whole became a part time job.

Finally, we were charged over $100 for the "installation" of Glade plug ins after the hurricane tenants left. I don't know why those were needed (we were never there so it couldn't be anything we did) but I can certainly help you find a better deal for...

I rented a 2 bedroom, 2 bath villa in Fort Myers from May-June and was unimpressed. The neighborhood and pool was great but everything else was horrible. While they were very responsive to my text and phone calls, the did not solve any of my issues with my rental. The water in the main shower is luke warm at best. They sent a technician to look at it and they said it was warm, so they didn't fix it. It is still cold, the only time I can tolerate showering in there is after swimming at the pool, otherwise it feels like an ice bath. The AC in the house is a joke, I am lucky if it is able to keep the house below 78 by the end of the day. I told them and they took 3 days to get an AC person there, the repair guy said it needs a new unit as the one there is too outdated to keep up with Florida heat. The rental company told me that the AC worked and there were no issues. They told me to keep the temp set at 74. They refuse to acknowledge the problem and keep providing excuses that are out of their control, yet I ask neighbors and friends in the area and they say that is not normal. So instead of being comfortable, I am barely sleeping at night due to the heat. On top of that, the villa's dryer doesn't dry my clothes unless I run 2 cycles and the washer doesn't always work. I have to stay another 2 months for work and I will be finding another place to go. I will never rent from this...