The house was really filthy--inside and out. This included (but unfortunately wasn't limited to): animal hair all over the furniture, the dining table had crumbs all over it and smelled terrible (like bad milk) because it couldn't be properly cleaned (the rough, wooden surface wasn't sealed), dead bugs in every room, the screened porch was unusable because the furniture and floor were covered in a thick layer of pollen, and the back yard patio was unusable because it wasn't clean and there were carpenter bees. Given that I traveled with my husband, two small children, and mother-in-law who flew in from out-of-state, we were all incredibly disappointed, but decided to tough it out because our kids were so excited about going to the beach and we felt like we had no other option. On top of that, on the first evening there we saw a cockroach. By the end of the visit (4 nights), we saw and killed at least 20 cockroaches. We liked the house...just not the state that it was in.
I've stayed at a lot of VRBO properties, and I've never been in a situation like this, so I was in shock and wasn't sure how to proceed. Looking back, we should have contacted the managing company immediately. However, I'm not really sure how this could have been remedied during our stay. Given that we brought a pet bird and two small children with us, we did not want them exposed to roach treatments and didn't want people in the house cleaning it while we were in it (it rained a lot when we first got there).
We did contact the manager of the property after we vacated, and the response was also disappointing. While we did appreciate their offer to stay another weekend at one of their other properties, we couldn't stomach going to another place that may be handled in a similar manner. We're also not sure how the house could have been in this state--it was not suitable for guests, so it's hard to trust that any of their properties would be acceptable upon return. Instead of the offered weekend, we informed the manager that we would prefer two of our days refunded, but unfortunately the manager has now been unresponsive.
There were some other minor issues as well, but they all paled in comparison with what I've already listed. The house is actually quite nice; it just isn't maintained. The location is also nice as is the beach; we spent as much time on the beach as possible.