Alesha P.
2/5
I am sorry to leave a negative review, but I feel this is important for those researching rental companies. We contracted with VRA for one year to manage our vacation rental. They advertised as a local all-in-one management company with in-house cleaning and maintenance. We paid a higher percentage than other companies to have this peace of mind (35%+ fees).
For the first couple of months things were great, but then we started to notice issues with cleaning, damage, and missing items. By our spring visit, the bedroom carpet had so much pet urine on it that we couldn't sleep there. The home was dirty with food on walls/cabinets, sticky floors, urine around toilets, dust, etc...It also smelled awful. When I questioned how things had gotten like this, the head of cleaning said that my home had actually been outsourced. The carpet and spring deep clean had simply been missed while regular cleaning was clearly not up to par (see pics below). She apologized and took the charge off my billing for the deep clean that never happened but there was clearly an oversight issue going on with our home.
After this we went almost once a month to check on things. We would spend the first couple days making repairs and replacing a continual list of missing items like all the bed blankets, floor mats, TV remotes, cable cord, pillows, bedding, laundry hampers...
All of this should have been under VRA's purview and responsibility. It was clear that inventory checks were not occuring after guest departures. When I would try to talk to the main customer service rep about our growing concerns, his tone became more and more adversarial. It was clear by this point we had become a thorn in his side which was very unfortunate because we were continually willing to move past things and be positive that things would get better over time.
By the next month we arrived to the home which had not been cleaned after the previous guest. It was a glitch on their scheduling system which we could understand, but when I called the "24/7" number for help the man literally said, "there was nothing they could do unless we were locked out." No one would bring us basic necessities like sheets and towels to get through the night. So we spent the evening cleaning and slept on bare mattresses. I asked the cleaning manager for compensation since I cleaned after the guest myself but the only concession she would do was not charge US a clean fee for our stay. I really couldn't believe this was even something she would haggle over under these circumstances.
Then the washing machine was broke by a guest accidentally. It was only a year old, now completely unusable with towels and water left inside. The owner agreement with VRA explicitly promises to "pay up to 3k per guest per stay for damage" so we had every expectation that VRA would be fixing or replacing it as soon as possible. Instead, they refused saying the brand had "known" issues with the door locking. The contract had zero caveats for "brands" or any other exceptions to their commitment to pay for guest damage. To us, this was a blatant breach of contract but we were too exhausted by this point to pursue it further so paid 1k to purchase a new machine.
After this we cut ties with VRA which was a huge loss for us. I hate leaving a review like this but hope VRA will take it as constructive criticism and work to improve rather than make excuses or deflect it back on us. When we terminated our contract, I sent a comprehensive email outlining the reasons which were much more expansive than this review. We received no response.
