Complaint Review: Lynne Henderson - Martin GA

I rented a home from Lynne Henderson, via VRBO / HomeAway for a month and the home had a water issue that made it highly unpleasant to stay at the home.  The water had an odor of rotten eggs / sulpher that permeated the home any time the hot water was turned on.  Lynne Henderson was notified of this problem within 2 days of our arrival at her property.  Nothing was ever done by her to remedy this situation.

I found a whole house water filter in her basement that was copper / brown in color and full of sediment.  It was supposed to be changed every 3 months, but she did not have any idea when it was last changed.

Lynne told me to run the water a while and it would be fine.  I ran the water through the hot water tank until it was cold (about an hour), three times and the odor did not abate.  

I let Lynne know that we had stopeed drinking the water, did not use if for anything like cleaning food / vegatables, etc. but had to buy bottled water.  We traveled to Atlanta and another AirBnB to take showers.

It is entirely likely that the hot water heater is contaminated.  

If this was not enough, the kitchen was totally disorganized upon arrival and it took us two days to organize it to be able to use it.

The property has a dock on Lake Hartwell.  Upon arrival the dock had no electricity.  There were 14 lights on the dock / dock bridge - only three light bulbs were present.  The dock has rotted wood in several places, the bridge to the dock has several rotten boards.  The furniture on the dock had rotted wood.  The owner was made aware of this two months prior to my arrival.  There are two fans on the dock, but no fan blades.

The home has a screened porch that was unusable due to the number of spders all through the porch and furniture on the porch.  It did not appear the deck had been cleaned in months.

Inside the home, I had to clean the bathroom floor and kitchen floor before considering the home clean enough to live in.

Several light bulbs were burned out throughout the home.

The home was advertised with a Green Egg and gas grill.  The Green Egg was not on the property and the gas grill had an empty propane tank. 

The home is listed as having Wi-Fi.  The best speed test I could get showed less than 1MB bandwidth.  I was waiting for the dial-up sound and "you have mail" from 20 years ago.

Given we were renting for a month, we would expect to vacuum, we found the vacuum hose tool was cut / broken.

Lynne, the owner did NOTHING about the water, had done NOTHING about the condition of the dock, offered a possible rental refund..... but nothing has come of that.

The only thing she has done something about was when I told her that her dock mooring had pulled away.  Within 12 hours she had that fixed.

I will never rent from this person again and suggest you consider my experience before you make the same mistake.

As far as VRBO / HomeAway is concerned, they listened to my complaint, read all the notes back and forth between Lynne and I, then indicated they do not get in the middle of disputes between a traveler and the home owner.  If you believe using a company that advertises a rental, sets up the payment and then does nothing when it turns south is in your best interest - then by all means use these people.  I for one am done with VRBO.