Renters beware; I have rented from VRBO for over 15 years. I have never had an experience like this. If you’d like to have some friends over, don’t. Owner refuses to return our deposit and claims we had a party because we had friends come over to meet our 3 MONTH OLD daughter. Manual says: ''Any unsanctioned parties will result in the forfeiture your deposit." There was approximately 10 people including children, who all left BEFORE 5pm on a Saturday. If we were to have a "party" we would have had to hire help to manage noise. What a shakedown. I also have confirmed in writing we did not get a noise complaint (not surprising). One of the co-hosts even came over, was super friendly said hi, and made NO MENTION of us having a party. (Taking away our deposit for a ''party''? Very surprising).
So he is basing this off of Ring videos. Which is creepy. He says we had too many ins and outs of the place, but there is also no mention of how many ins and outs are allowed. Half of the videos are due to the fact that the studio is very hard to access and people couldn’t find the ONLY way to get in, which is via narrow spiral staircase. Do you know how much crap we have to bring for a baby? How many times we had to up and down?? Imagine carrying a baby up and down that? Were there other cameras? Not even going to ask because I was breastfeeding.
Either way, he’s trying to be fair because unfortunately in the past he's had to deal with dogs, smoking, and parties of 60+ people. Not sure what that has to do with us? I will be reaching out to VRBO that he’s holding deposits because of grudges from other renters. Owner is unprofessional. VERY good at responding before you check in, then terrible at being available afterwards when I wanted to chat. I’m not sure if he pretended not to know who I was? After I finally got a hold of him after texting, leaving voicemails, and messages in the VRBO inbox, he said he had already decided he wasn’t returning the deposit in advance. Why did you waste a week’s worth of my time? Our deposit is not being used to fix anything, there was no damage, noise complaint, extra trash, warning from the host when he showed up in person, nothing.
Such a dishonest practice. I should have known better since someone else mentioned deposit issues in their review.
Studio itself? It’s alright. Beware that the loft is less than 5 feet, so you have to crouch up there. There is also only a mini fridge, and no oven.