One thing is sure, we can all thank Lizzie for starting a great conversation about the fun and games involved in renting a vacation apartment !

Some points worthy of underscoring:

1) If certain elements are critical to you, be very clear about them in your contact with the owner/agency. Don't rely just on the internet advert. If it's something which will make or break the deal, then send an email and stress strongly that this is very important to you. Print out the email for reference when you arrive.

2) Make sure before reserving that there will be someone readily available to handle problems that may arise. Insist on a name, a phone number and assurance that you will be able to contact this person and get a response - failure to provide this most basic element would be a red flag for me.

2) When you arrive - do a thorough walk-through with the owner/representative. If an apartment is unacceptably dirty - this is the moment to demand it be cleaned. Planning on making a few meals ? Then take an extra 10 seconds to open the fridge and oven. Have a seat on the bed - take a look at the bedding - and yes, open the toilet. Sorry, but you are about to spend a week of a long awaited vacation (and some serious cash) - make sure BEFORE accepting the keys and moving in that you are getting what you deserve.

3) Be reasonable about your expectations. There are no free lunches.

4) If things go badly wrong, understand that your chances of judicial redress (at least in France) drop to next to nothing if the apartment was illegally rented. If a legal rental, you'll have a much stronger case if you have obtained an "etat des lieux" (rental checklist) as part of your contract. While not an obligation for seasonal rentals, you have the right to ask the owner to provide one and every official French organization strongly recommends doing so. Refusal by the owner to provide this document would be another red flag.

In any case, trying to go the legal route as an overseas visitor is going to be difficult and far from practical. A much better bet is to attempt to negotiate directly compensation as Lizzie has tried to do, so far without success.

Your chances of reaching an acceptable settlement go way up if you do so immediately BEFORE MAKING USE OF THE RENTAL. Why ? Well read the next post as this one is getting way to wordy....

-Kevin

Here's one that may surprise the average Fodorite: there are from time to time vacationers who attempt to rip-off rental owners.

It works as follows - they rent an apartment or gite or villa, spend their week enjoying their vacation and then upon returning home, demand compensation based on completely unreasonable and totally fabricated complaints. Threats are made to use the internet to post all over the place about how awful the rental is - nothing short of extortion.

I want to be clear that I am IN NO WAY implying that this is what Lizzie is doing. Far from it, her photos and well documented post make that clear, as I have already said. But it does demonstrate why from an owner's point-of-view it is so much more effective if you demand compensation before using the rental than afterward.

If during the walk-through, for example, you notice that the extra couch/bed which you had very specifically asked about and been assured would be there for you is nowhere to be found - you will be in a very strong position to demand adequate compensation (for example, the price of a single hotel room of comparable standard nearby). Any remotely reasonable owner or agency would accept that sort of resolution.

If instead, you wait until you get home and then send off an email saying how the lack of the couch really spoiled your vacation and you deserve money back - well, the owner/agency may just write you off as someone trying to save a bit more money on their vacation.

And for the final time, I am not implying for a minute that Lizzie falls into this category. There is no way I, or anyone else except her, could know. I take what she says entirely at face value.

Just keep in mind that an owner will be much more amenable to compensation if you can demonstrate it's justified BEFORE you've spent a week vacation in their home.

-Kevin

I totally agree with kevin_widrow. If there are things that are not up to what one wishes, and it is reasonable, then it has to be fixed on the spot. If this is not possible and one feels he/she is entitled to a compensation, the fair and smart thing to do is to state it beforehand, otherwise, one risks entering a path that's leading to nowhere. And I also believe that it does not seem very fair to take the rental and say nothing, therefore implicitely accepting the state of things, then claim a compensation. In this case, Lizzie has been offered a 100$ compensation, that's a lot of money, why isn't she taking it? And finally, and from my own experience, it seems to me (though I'm not saying it's the case) that there are people that are claiming money after renting an apartment... while they would never do the same with a hotel, even if it is in poor conditions. Do these people think an apartment owner is easier to intimidate, or why is that?....

To clarify for everyone, the original thread was automatically pulled because it had been reported for spam so many times (due the individual comment about wwwsupercars, by a poster who was rampant on other unrelated threads). We have since deleted the spammer. I'll leave this thread in place for now as long as it stays constructive.

On the issue of commercial posting: we do our absolute utmost to keep this board free of commercial activity. There's a very fine line between commercial and non these days, but it is our absolute goal to keep businesses out. We welcome all emails to [email protected] to aid us in this.

I appreciate Lizzie reposting her review, even if for no other reason than making sure Mitch59 didn't get the chance to think he had triumphed.

While I agree that Lizzie would have been better off if she had discovered the cleanliness and bedding issues during the initial walk-through, several posts here state or imply that Lizzie did nothing to express her displeasure during the stay. Clearly she reported the lack of cleanliness, hence the (ineffective) visit from the maid, and she reported the plumbing problem, hence the (unkept) promise to have a plumber respond. Presumably those calls were made to the Paris management. I believe Lizzie also stated in the prior thread that she attempted to contact VIP while she was still in Paris but did not receive a return call.

"In this case, Lizzie has been offered a 100$ compensation, that's a lot of money, why isn't she taking it "

A $100 dollars is a lot of money?

"while they would never do the same with a hotel, even if it is in poor conditions. Do these people think an apartment owner is easier to intimidate, or why is that?....'

in a hotel there are many people to complain to, in an apt... not so easy to find the owner or the agents.

Thank you, AdamT, for clearing up that mystery. Janis can relax now. :-) Apparently, there was a need (or someone was lazy) to delete the entire thread because of the spam's code. It's fun to know what actually happened to that thread and it's good to know readers can write Fodor's to tell them how they feel about permitting businesses a chance to respond to customers on this board. From my experience, you can tell a lot about a business by any response they offer to a complaint. IMO, customers would be well served to get a sense of both sides of these transactions. In this economy, the devil is in the details and customer service truly matters. And on the flip side, no reputable business should be forced to deal with a cheap, liar customer looking to create mayhem for the purpose of extorting a refund.

Janis,
I did read - and participate in - the first thread. As I suspected (and AdamT confirmed), the first thread was pulled due to a spammer's post with a possibly virulent liink. I don't recall it being a "Bash VIP" thread - on the contrary I remember several postings complimenting the agency. In my opinion, it was more of a "bash Lizzy" thread with people criticizing her for (a) renting the apartment in the first place, (b) not doing enough once she discovered the extent of the problems (although as noted above she did contact management on more than one occasion) and (c) being too specific in her complaints thereby "losing credibility."

I agreed with you on the first thread that her post was well though out, courteous and professional - not the typical "the place was a dump" type complaint.

My argument is that a thread such as Lizzy's is a valuable travel tool for people who like to do their homework when renting a vacation apartment. If such a thread is deleted for unrelated reasons (spam) I think Lizzy should re-post so this thread can be accessed in the future.

I appreciate the repost and I feel for Lizzy and friends. I imagine it would have been difficult for 6 people to find new digs in the same motel at the last minute. Once you get to Paris you don't have many options other than expensive alternative accomodations or sticking it out.

We Fodorites rely on each other for advice. I booked my apartment (May 2010) based on Fodorite recommendations. I did not book with VIP. Frankly if they want to maintain a good reputation they'd take it upon themselves to clean the apartment and then ask the owner for reimbursement.

I had my own little saga last May with renting a VIP apartment. Anyone who enjoys this kind of entertainment and wants to read through the thread you can find it here: http://tinyurl.com/yhd9jx6

There will always be those who think folks should just suck it up and take what you get and not be so picky and those who think you have the right to complain about any and everything and many who fall somewhere in between. But whether or not the complaint is "reasonable" (which is often subjective) how an agency handles the complaint is what really matters and I think VIP falls very short here. It seems that many of their apartments are probably just fine and good value but when there is a problem, that's when they need to have better business practices and why I'll never rent with them again, even though many have rented fine places from them.

"And if I rent an apartment that says it sleeps up to 6, I am not supposing that it only sleeps 5. Silly. "

tuscanlifeedit, I think I should explain.

I have experience of too many cases where technically the sleeping arrangements were as described, but for all practical purposes there was less than what first met the eye. For example,our group has used places with mattresses that might have in fact been double or queen-sized or whatever, but which were in somewhat iffy condition or rather thin and really didn't offer comfortable support for more than one person. (So-called 'double' sofa beds are infamous for this.) Then there's the time the sofa bed was broken and refused to pull out. Since the apartment was otherwise okay, and since the vendor could not offer us any other accomodation, and since yours truly was small enough to curl up on said sofa without actually pulling out the mattress, it worked out okay, but not if we'd been relying on two people to use that sofa bed. Only because we had fewer in our party than the advertised maximum did things work out okay.

It's from those experiences that I suggested not pushing things to the max, as it were. I'm not blaming Lizzy for feeling disappointed, but as another poster said, this is supposed to be a cautionary tale.

The grim reality is, there are many instances where we travelers don't have a lot of leverage. This is especially true when one is booking far from home: it's not like one is likely to be able to return to pursue the matter in the local equivalent of small claims court.

Kevin widrow is right, the best chance one has is on the walk-through, but even if one spots problems, and would prefer not to accept the place, it isn't always a simple matter to walk away. A special event may be on, making vacancy rates lower than usual; one's budget may preclude some alternatives, etc. etc. Thus, the suggestions I and others made re 'making do' does NOT mean that sloppy presentation is acceptable, exactly but it sometimes is the most practical choice to grit one's teeth and MAKE matters acceptable.

One final point: regarding 'horror stories.' I'm not dismissing Lizzy's concerns, but just to offer some perspective on safety: a few months ago I heard a truly tragic tale about unsafe wiring. The young man involved, about 23 years of age and backpacking through India, was staying in a fairly inexpensive men's hostel (I don't recall the actual Indian city in question, although I might be able to find out.) In any case, he saw in the communal shower room what he evidently thought was a clothes line stretched across the room, at about 7 or 8 feet off the floor, and apparently started to hang his damp towel over the line.

It wasn't a clothes line, it was a live electrical cord and he died within two days of the electrical shock injuries he sustained.

There is unsafe, and there is UNSAFE. There are 'horror stories' and then there is really, just horror.

Correction: Seems I got the details of the electric shock story wrong; it was the balcony of the room or apartment in which this took place, and the wire in question was the high tension wire that entered the building, and which passed near a corner of the balcony.

After reviewing the story with my source, I went looking for a 'proper' published media news account of the incident, and have yet to find one; the story seems plausible enough, but since my own source got the story secondhand, I will post a link when/if I find one.

***

Anyway, back to Lizzy's apartment dilemma: I didn't address the plumbing problem because I didn't immediately understand what had happened. I've since reread your account Lizzy and I think I now do understand: comments in brackets [xxx] are my rewording:

"he (the handyman) found just the pipe unplugged and he just plugged it in. The handyman said that he got the impression that someone had unplugged it and didn't even charge for his time’. I [, Lizzy] took [the manager] to mean [by that story that] one of us [must have deliberately] unplugged a pipe in the cupboard [in order] to flood the floor in our apartment during our stay so we would render the sink unusable...."

Lizzy, I don't think the handyman or the manager meant to accuse you, rather, the manager was simply pointing out what the handyman found: from the sound of it, your sink's drainage pipe had a trap on it; this trap in turn had a plug on it which is designed to facilitate access to the drain. This is good news, it means the plumbing isn't as ancient as it might be; really old pipes have bizarre trap arrangements and rarely have anything as convenient as a plug on the trap. (It's convenient because otherwise during maintenance one has to take apart the pipe at the joint for access.)

Anyway, it sounds like somebody - a previous tenant, the owner, or maybe even the handyman himself on a previous assignment - simply forgot to reinsert the plug after doing maintenance (clearing a clog, or searching for an item inadvertently washed down the drain, whatever.) So the first time you used the sink (I'm presuming) the waste water, needless to say, drained out of the open plug and out through the sink cabinet onto the floor.

I agree, this was careless on the part of whoever forgot to reinsert the plug, and it must have been annoying. But if I've understood the tale correctly, it's also clearly an accident, and not a sign of 'bad' plumbing per se. It is also not necessarily a harbinger of bad maintenance on the whole (whereas the dirty oven is certainly a lot less excuseable.) I admit that I wouldn't automatically check under the sink to see if a trap plug was left uninserted, but you can bet I will after this! Fortunately reinserting the plug is not a major matter, one might even be able to reinsert it oneself.

OK,

As I said before I am glad that this report was posted and then reposted, as I look for reports on Fodors on places to stay when planning a trip.

I have been reading these replies with interet... Many posters have their own explanation for problems Lizzy reported. There are lots of statements about what other posters would have done to fix the problems.

Since the leaking sink has been pointed out, let's put the rest of the story about the about the sink forward(taken from Lizzy's report)...

"The bathroom sink sprung a leak and flooded dirty water all over the floor, which we had to clean up with our towels (no mop) and although the manager stated a plumber WOULD LOOK at the leak this DID NOT OCCUR during our stay and the sink was not functional."

OK, for what it is worth, reguardless of what the sink problem was, the fact that the apt manager DID NOT look into the problem reported while Lizzy and company were paying to stay there shows gross indifference on the part of the rental company and is a big red flag for using said company's properties!

If one is familar with French plumbing, maybe he could have fixed the problem and maybe the management didn't mean to insult Lizzy! That is not the issue! Lizzy was paying rent for a working sink, when the sink stopped working, she called he management for a fix and they didn't show up before Lizzy left then had to nerve to tell Lizzy:

"the manager later stated ‘he (the handyman) found just the pipe unplugged and he just plugged it in. The handyman said that he got the impression that someone had unplugged it and didn't even charge for his time’. I took this to mean one of us that had unplugged a pipe in the cupboard to flood the floor in our apartment during our stay so we would render the sink unusable."

Lizzy's take on the comment sounds reasonable to me, actually it sounds like the management was just giving excusses and trying to justify their short comings.

If a company (apt management, B&B, Hotel what ever) is trying to make/keep the client happy, they will send someone to checkout/fix a plumbing problem as soon as possible. That is a reasonable expectation by anyone paying for a place to stay.

Yes, this company may very well have some nice properties that are well cared for by the property owners and get great reviews on this board.

But, travelers reading Fodors posts also need to know that there are some less than wonderful properties managed by this company. And if you happen to rent one of those, that company may do very little if anything to fix any problems you might have.

That is a good cautionary tale!

I'm with you, cwn; hard to understand how some on here are determined to find fault with Lizzy and to come up with all kinds of explanations to excuse VIP's behavior.

I'm glad I read this second post. I missed the original first time around. I'm not renting a place in Paris, but in Provence, but I actually feel better about my rental as it occurred to me that the owners of the house I'm renting turned me down originally because even though their property was listed as sleeping "up to ten," when I told them we were originally looking to sleep 7 adults and one child, they said that the house really couldn't sleep that many despite the presence of "double beds" etc, etc. Long story short, we lost two adults and one child along the way (not literally, thank goodness), so we went back to them and booked the house.

Anyway, I'd still been sweating the "what if it turns out to be 'misrepresented'" until you all made me realize that if the owners really wanted to misrepresent just to cheat people, they wouldn't have turned me down in the first place and then revised their listings. They'd have just told the eight of us where to send the money...

Thanks everybody.

"It is also not necessarily a harbinger of bad maintenance on the whole (whereas the dirty oven is certainly a lot less excuseable.)"

If the management didn't send someone over to check out AND fix the problem right away (within 24 hours at the latest), then it certainly does indicate maintenance and customer service are not high priorities.

I agree with grandmere, a number of posters seem incredibly determined to pick apart Lizzy's report, searching with miscroscopes for the tiniest bit of evidence they can come up with to defend VIP and paint the OP as some kind of hyper sensitive serial complainer.

I keep going back to one thing that totally puzzles me: Why didn't VIP de-list this apartment immediately from their website? They changed the pull-out sofa listing, but kept the actual apartment on (although I have not checked that in the past five days--maybe they've removed it). Is there a legal reason?

Obviously, this apartment owner had no intention of providing a satisfactory experience for the agency's clients. Do you think there is a contractual obligation that would prevent VIP from taking the listing off their website? That would certainly add even more fuel to Lizzie's overall message--"Rent with Caution" to all renters in France.

While I'm on this, I cannot comprehend in the SLIGHTEST the willingness of others to pick apart Lizzie's post (or BACKTRACK, by the way, on the idea that they had already critized her! Ahem: We see your posts--they didn't disappear). I see that posters are psychoanalyzing her, too. OMG--the plumber is now being portrayed as a "victim" of Lizzie's post.

Look, reality check--Lizzie rented this apartment for six people. This is their vacation--they can't hop to a hotel insto-presto. It was supposed to a)provide bedding for ALL six and b) not be flooded and c) be safe. Period. She did not ask for the Ritz, and she knew it.

Did Lizzie post "We were ROBBED by VIP?" NO. Lizzie titled her original post correctly (Key Word: Cautionary) and gave objective details--all of which serve the intention of this informative board. Her post's stated and indeed proved intention: "Rent with Caution". And the problem with that message is????

For those of you who have so kindly added your legal knowledge (that a furnished apartment doesn't qualify the same as an unfurnished apartment with a walk-through)God Bless You--you have lived up to what this forum was supposed to be--INFORMATIVE.

Now, again, does anyone know if there is a legal reason why an agency cannot remove an unsatisfactory property from their website?

As Betty Davis once said: "What a dump!".

A picture is worth a thousand words, isn't it? There's no way the condition of this apartment was accurately represented in it's advertising photos because Nobody would rent this place after seeing representative photos! There's no antique Parisian charm inherent here. Let's call a spade a spade: It's a dump and Lizzy got ripped off. It happens. It's going to happen again.

Live and learn, Lizzy. Let it go. But you're right...it's a dump.

I'm on your side Lizzy!