Gracie

 

Gracie will be 3 yrs old in July. These are recent pictures of her while we were hiking in East Granby this past weekend. She loved it. I didn't love it quite as much. For the first time in all these years of going there I didn't really have a good time. Turns out the place was rather over run by families that brought their kids. Ordinarily that is not a problem but this time it seemed like everyone brought kids that didn't want to be there or were determined to make the place their own personal war zone for entertainment purposes. 

Over and over again I kept running into families with really rowdy kids; being loud; hitting each other with sticks; throwing rocks, etc. They were rather a nightmare and certainly not what I wanted to be around. Sometimes I could clearly HEAR these kids but not even see them because they were far enough away to be out of eyesight. I was very disappointed. 

I go to the woods for peace and quiet; for exercise and to make sure my dog has a good life as well. But like so many times since Covid hit a few years ago, these places that I once used to travel alone or nearly alone are now well known by the local rabble (as I call them).

 

There was one bright spot while I was there. I met a very old man walking towards me on my way back out of the woods. I noticed him for two reasons....first of all because he looked to be VERY old, like shouldn't be going anywhere alone old, let alone be in the woods alone and secondly because although he looked very old the guy had a big smile on his face and he was really moving along very well for someone who looked that old! We said a few words to each other in passing and he kept that smile on his face the whole time and never broke stride either. Good for him! I hope he enjoyed his time in the woods. 

I can't exactly put my finger on why but he made me feel so much better. 

 

AirBNB Nightmare

105 Wagner Way, Tobyhanna Township, PA 18347

 

So every year we take a vacation of some kind with the family and our dogs. This year we were to stay at a nice place in New York State. I was really looking forward to it.

As luck would have it the renter contacted my son the day before our vacation was to start, telling him the place was double booked. This has never happened to us before but this renter admitted it’s happened to him before…..which mean he’s either an idiot that makes stupid mistakes at other people’s expense or he’s an idiot that just doesn’t know what he’s doing. In any case we will not be renting from him again.

We now had the option to all collectively change our vacation time (not possible) or stay home (come on!) or try to book another place at the last minute. We went for option 3 as the little kids were looking forward to this vacation and frankly so was I.

My son booked a place in Tobyhanna, PA.  You may be thinking that’s a weird town name….it made me think of our family cat Toby from when I was a kid. But it did turn out to be a real town. On line the house looked nice; listed all the things we would need including air conditioning which you may have noticed is essential this summer as we are experiencing 90 plus days with high humidity for weeks on end this year.

I packed my stuff; got the dog in the car and set off on my way to vacation!!

I got to the house first. I usually do as I don’t make any stops if I can help it or very few if I must stop. This time I did have to stop to use the bathroom at one of the rest areas. I was really nervous about it because Gracie was with me. I can’t just leave her in the car with the heat the way it is…..someone would smash a window to save her and I’d be arrested for sure. I’ve never had this issue before so I was very much undecided about what to do with her. Plus she’s a nervous dog to begin with….anything new happening to her and she’s very likely to freak out.  In the end I decided I’d walk her around at the rest area to let her pee and then I just took her in the ladies room stall with me! She did not understand what was going on and did her best to make sure I knew that……she had to be dragged into the stall with me. I used one of the handicap stalls and I was totally justified in doing so. It is definitely a handicap to have to drag an English Pointer into a stall with you; hang on to her leash the whole time; prevent her from going back under the stall door to get away; all while trying to pee on the toilet!

That done, I met a young lady on my way out. She was surprised to see the dog but seemed to like Gracie and Gracie likes everyone so it was fine. I told her I couldn’t very well leave the dog in a hot car so I just brought her with me. She seemed to think it made sense so that made me feel better. And we were back on the road again real quick.

So as I said, I got to the house first. I let Gracie out to sniff and pee and do doggie things that are fun after a long car ride. As I got up to the door I found a notice on the door handle. It was a shut off notice. This is not a good thing.

The notice was dated 7/19 and the date was 7/22 when I got there. This means to me that no one has seen this notice except me. Now I’m getting nervous….

I tried the code to open the door. It did not work. I took a quick walk around the property and I was not pleased by what I was seeing. The driveway was in such a state that it appeared to be reverting back to a wild state. The decorative wishing well and bench next to it in the front yard were both covered in years’ worth of moss and debris. The ‘lawn’ had not been mowed in a very long time. The grass and weeds were so tall they had given up trying to be upright and were laying down for the most part. The bushes along the front of the house were all over grown as well.

I got back in my car and called my son telling him I could not get in the door. They were about 15 mins out from the place and it was beginning to down pour so I just waiting in my car with Gracie. When they arrived Justin tried to get in the door….didn’t work for him either. He called AirBNB and was told by someone who was supposedly a maintenance man that we could get in by a side door. (this proved to be true as the door was not locked and the inner screen door with it was not even in its track as it was the wrong size to even fit that door way.

 

The notice on the door indicated that someone had not been paying their electricity bill and the place was about to be shut off. This is NOT the type of notice you want to see when arriving at a rental after a 3 ½ hour drive to get there. The adventure just got worse from there.

Once we were all inside with all our stuff (what option did we have but to go inside right?) it became obvious that many things advertised about the place were just not true at all! The first problem was that the hot was extremely hot. There was no air conditioning in the house; no central air; no window units, nothing. In fact the type of windows the house had made it impossible to put window units in the windows at all. All it had was a ceiling fan in the dining area that although it was on full force the entire time it did little other than move hot air around.

The third bedroom (that was to be mine) was in the basement area. The door was locked but somehow Kasey got it open and actually made the bed up as well. She should not have bothered. It was actually must cooler down there but the overwhelming stench of mold was so strong down there I could not sleep down there and instead I had to sleep on the couch, in the heat upstairs in the living room. Upon investigating the lower level further it was obvious that there had been some kind of water problem down there at some point because the drywall was all water damaged and the baseboards had been removed but nothing had been done from that point. I strongly suspect there is mold behind that drywall from the water damage. The stench was unbelievable!

Let me list for you here some of the other problems we found with the house immediately. There was no garbage bin; none of any kind in the house (we had an infant with us and dirty diapers that needed to be in a bin….none there. We ended up using one of our coolers with a garbage bag in it (we bought our own garbage bags as there were none of those in the house anywhere either) because without a garbage bin we needed something with a lid for smell and to keep the dogs out. There were no cleaning supplies at all other than a small half bottle of Dawn dish soap and a broom….no dust pan mind you….just a broom; no vacuum. There was almost nothing in the kitchen….the same kitchen that was advertised as having condiments and general cooking supplies….didn’t even have salt; pepper and cooking oil.

The bathroom had exactly 4 towels and 1 washcloth; no soap; no shampoo or conditioner; no garbage bin or bags; 2 rolls of toilet paper; no tub mat in the tub to prevent falls; nothing that normal rentals make available for their renters. The kids were bathed to cool them off. Mya ended up falling backwards while sitting in the tub and bumped her head pretty good…..because there was no mat in there to prevent it. The worse part of a vacation is having to drive to a store to buy essentials that are not provided with the rental and that’s exactly what had to be done as soon as we got there.

An email was written by the three of us that night and sent to AirBNB about the terrible condition of this house. More about their incompetency later….

I took the dog for a walk and found the ‘Pilgrim Lake’ just down the road a short way. This is no lake….it’s a swamp. I have no idea why it’s called a lake…it simply is not a lake unless it’s a lake for frogs; tadpoles; snakes and other wildlife that enjoys swamps. I never made it to the actually lake that was nearby as I simply couldn’t handle the heat and ended up leaving early.

That night was terrible for me; between the excessive heat; Zack’s little toenails clicking all over the house (Justin’s dog; he was probably too hot to settle down too); Gracie moving around trying to get comfortable; the hardness of the couch; lack of a pillow….the night just wore on with me awake thru most of it. I resolved to leave in the morning. I didn’t want to leave the family but this was a nightmare that I was just not prepared for and not able to handle.

I left in the morning and had a horrendous 4 ½ hour drive home. It was Saturday and for some reason the traffic was crazy the whole way home. I didn’t want to stop; I just wanted to get home. In fact I just kept chanting to myself I just want to go home; I just want to go home. My poor dog spent more time in the car than she did anywhere else.

The rest of the family stayed (not wanting to do that long drive with 3 kids and a dog again so soon) and did their best to enjoy their time there. They did visit fun places with the kids. The area is nice. It’s just the house that was so horrible.

To make things even worse when they got back home the ‘owner’ of the place had sent a bill for $300 to AirBNB that they wanted my son to pay. According to this owner (who has obviously not been to this nightmare home for a long time or maybe never) the side porch door was broken (yes, before we even got there moron! Your maintenance man told us how to get in that way); the screen door was broken (no, it was fine it just is the wrong size for that door idiot!); the kitchen stool was broken (a miracle or an act of incredible strength must have happened for this one because the chairs were metal and impossible to break even if we wanted to); the comforter in the mold room had to be replaced (they accused Zack of having peed on it and that it had to be replaced because of that. First of all Zack is far too small a dog to get up on that bed and even if anyone had peed on it there is no reason why it can’t be WASHED!); lastly they complained they needed to do a Deep Cleaning because we did not clean up well enough and there was dog hair in the house. Now that is just plain ridiculous. First of all yes, my dog sheds and I make a habit of vacuuming whenever I bring her anywhere to stay. I have two issues here….first of all there WAS NO VACUUM so I couldn’t clean up her hair and second of all since when is vacuuming considered Deep Cleaning???!!

Obviously the person renting this place is a shyster of the lowest order. We know that now. Unfortunately AirBNB did not handle the situation correctly or promptly and let it drag out far too long. Their customer service is a joke and after assuring us that they would handle the bill and we should just ignore it they allowed my son and his family to be continually harassed by the owner about paying the extended bill for basically lies they made up. I do believe that the owner made up issues to try to counter act the complaints we made and to obtain free money. It was very obvious (after we got there) that this house had been severely neglected for quite some time. Someone had bought it and was trying to make a quick buck by renting it without first having brought it up to basic living standards. They even went so far as to actually lie about the amenities in the house to capture unsuspecting people such as ourselves.  

I am currently looking for further information so I can make a formal complaint to someone in authority in that town about that owner and AirBNB for not handling the situation properly and not screening the home/owner better than they did on this house. No one should have to go through what my family and I went through; have a vacation time ruined and then be harassed and lied to afterward.

Unfortunately I didn’t take pictures of all the issues with the house and I have not listed them all here either. Let this be a lesson to us all….it certainly is a lesson learned by my family. Always read the reviews about the rental you are looking to rent; also read reviews (if available) about the person renting it and AirBNB. And NEVER be the first person to rent any place anywhere no matter how nice it looks on line! The pictures I saw of the property I believe were from 2012 when the house was up for sale; way before this owner had it and did nothing to repair it.   

Front of the house….overgrown bushes and plenty of natural debris.

 Wishing well and bench in front yard. Sure wish they were nice!