This is a review of Peace Vacations (Peace). Peace rents vacation accommodations in coastal areas…read morelike Georgetown, SC. My wife and I booked an oceanfront accommodation through Peace in March 2025. The property is in a gated community known as Debordieu. The name of the property is "It'll Dieu."
Allow me to pause here to understate unequivocally that the place Peace rented us was anything but peaceful.
Our stay at It'll Dieu was to begin on November 5 and end November 19, 2025. We paid Peace $10,146.93. That works out to $724.78 per day. We stayed 5 days before we were forced to leave.
On a Friday, the 3rd day of our vacation, a crane and an impact pile driver began operation on a lot directly beside our rental. The noise and vibration were so shocking that we had no choice but to leave for the day.
We returned that day as the pile driving crew was preparing to leave. And since they were not planning to work on Saturday or Sunday but resume work on Monday, we left Monday morning. Our choice was to leave or stay and risk permanent injury.
At this point, I might indicate that my work background includes 14+ years with our state's OSHA. So, while not an expert on noise, I knew that staying in It'll Dieu would likely endanger our health.
A mini-course here on the dangers of noise created by pile drivers might help you understand our situation at It'll Dieu. Noise is measured by a dBA standard. It's a bit technical but dBA stands for "A-weighted decibels." Essentially, dBA is an industry standard for measuring noise registered by the human ear.
Pile drivers are uniquely noisy in the construction world. I estimated that piles were driven at 30 or less feet from our living area. Americanpiledriving.com says, "Based on a standard estimate of 95 dBA at 50 feet, you can expect around 99 dBA at 30 feet." OSHA requires properly fitted hearing protectors at 85 dBA.
The noise impact pile drivers cause can easily top 120 dBA. The National Institute on Deafness recommends limiting exposure to an average of 70 dBA to prevent hearing loss.
OSHA, CDC, and NIH (National Institute of Health) all agree that loud sounds can damage your hearing even if the noise is only for a brief time. In fact, the thing that makes impact pile drivers so dangerous is that the noise is "not" continuous.
According to Brown University, impulse (short/loud) sounds, precisely like impact pile drivers generate, can be more damaging than sustained sounds. Pile drivers can easily cause hearing loss. And any hearing loss is permanent in that it is irreparable.
The impact noise inside It'll Dieu was so violent that the entire house vibrated. With every impact, our nervous system went off the chart. I told Peace's client services manager that on the phone and in writing through her email. Still, with that knowledge, Peace declined to refund a pro-rated portion of our money or offer us an alternative accommodation. Yet Peace's rental agreement plainly states that Peace must refund our money or offer alternative accommodations in situations like ours.
Peace claims that in the rental agreement I signed away a right to contest a construction nuisance. But a nuisance and threat of permanent injury are different. How many people would sign away a right to contest a health-threatening situation? Peace had 8 months - March, when we booked till November, when we arrived - to pick up the phone and call the HOA to determine whether there would be construction.
Finally, Peace says It'll Dieu owners are responsible for refunds. But we paid our money to Peace.
We think Peace valued retaining our dollars more than protecting our health. What do you think?