We stayed here in August and overall enjoyed ourselves. The house itself is nicer than the photos show. The first floor has a bedroom, half bath and laundry area. The upstairs is where the living area, kitchen, second bedroom and full bathroom are. It was very clean and had a lot of natural sunlight. There was a nice wrap around 2nd story deck as well. Out back there is also a fire pit.
While the house was clean and tidy – some of the details were neglected:
- The sliding glass door on the second story would not lock. We notified the owners, who said it had been an issue in the past, but they didn’t provide a solution other than the neighborhood is safe. We took it upon ourselves and found something to secure it at night.
- The kitchen faucet was damaged and was set to the high-pressure nozzle, often splattering water all over.
- There were 3 wasp nests on the deck. We sprayed them with some wasp spray from the garage, but they pestered us daily, rendering the deck unusable.
- The house was not sufficiently stocked (or stocked at all) with garbage bags, toilet paper, hand soap, paper towels, or dishwasher tablets.
- The firepit is directly underneath a streetlight – the bright light kills the ambiance of a fire.
- Vicky, the owner, was difficult to contact – often taking a few days to respond and she didn’t answer every question we asked.
- Once we received the address, we were surprised to find that the cottage wasn’t actually on the lake. It’s about 600 feet from the water. Going back and reading the details, I’ll admit the overview mentions “a short walk to lake”, but the title of the property is “On Crooked Lake”. The dock that is photographed is actually a different property of the owners, who are within earshot at all times. I would really consider the dock more of a shared area with the owners. We met Vicky’s husband, Walt while out on the dock. He was very nice and helpful. He even stopped by once to drop off some items that we were short on in the house.
- We chose this property over others because of the pontoon availability at a fantastic rate. Unfortunately, we were notified the day before arriving that the pontoon was under repair. We called around to see if we could rent one elsewhere and due to the short notice, we were unable to find a replacement. It took the owner all week to have their boat fixed. We rented it for a discount on our last day because the engine would sputter and die if we pushed it past a few MPH.