HAPPY HIDEAWAY – YOU MUST STAY AWAY

235 Wesley Road, MacTier, Ontario, Muskoka. A cottage named as Happy Hideaway. The owners are Tracy and Vince.

http://www.ontariorentals.com/property/muskoka_cottage_rentals.70.html

http://justmuskokarentals.com/Detail.cfm?recordID=586

There are so many issues. Here is the list of problems we had to deal with:

CHECK IN and CHECK OUT TIME. The checkout time on the last day was 10:30am, which was a bit too early; but the bigger issue was the check-in time, 5:00pm, from the normal practice was unreasonably late.  

WATER, our utmost concerns, as the consequences could be very serious. The tap water from this cottage is in yellow colour, like pee, because it is from the lake directly. There wasn’t even a filter between the lake water and our tap water. You couldn't even use it for brushing teeth, showering, washing food or dish, cooking, or anything other than flushing the toilet. We have to buy distilled water for everything. The rental agreement stated we could use the water after fully boiled, but would you drink the yellow boiled water? Mind you the owner told us to bring bottled water for brushing teeth and washing food, only after we paid security deposit.

There were LOTS of ANTS on kitchen countertop. We had to kill them at the same time while doing anything in the kitchen.

DISHWATER, we added detergent into the dishwasher. After the wash, the detergent still stayed in the detergent compartment. So we didn't know if the dishes were cleaned. That’s why we had no clue how to wash the dishes in the remaining days.  Don’t forget we had no clean water except the distilled bottled water.

The ROWBOAT. The paddles were extremely worn. One of them was broken when our kids were rowing. It was fortunate that they managed to get back to the dock with only one paddle.  I couldn’t imagine what I could do if something worse had happened. Yet the owner was not concerned at all.  The only thing she did was to charge us $40 for a new paddle. Shame on her.

BBQ GRILL, looked great at first sight. However, the igniter didn’t work, we had to fire up with the matches, which was hard.  We also had to turn on the ceiling fan, exhaust fan, and tabletop fan, as well as open the door and all of the windows, yet the deck was still filled with smoke, and eventually the smoke alarm was set off. Happy? The grill was not functioning well. Half of the grill had no flame and grease everywhere. The flame burnt the grease so that we couldn't control the level of the flame.

CLEANING FEE. The rental agreement said that the cottage should be “thoroughly clean and tidy”. From common sense it meant bagging all garbage and recycling, mopping the countertop, putting things back to where they belong. But in fact, the owner expected us to clean the toilet and shower room, vacuum and mop all floors, mop all countertop, table and windows. The exact wording was “spotlessly clean”. When we were trying to explain we did the cleanup, the owner was yelling at us and said that we didn’t clean the house to the state where it was “exactly the way we found it on day 1”. She said the cleaning supplies were available, so we were supposed to clean the cottage. Come on, we were renting a cottage for fun and relaxation, not for work. Finally the owner charged us another $35 for cleaning.

If you are looking for a cottage, DON’T RENT THIS “HAPPY HIDEAWAY” or you will be robbed. It is a trap.