Wish I had read these reviews prior to renting with this agency. Same horrible experience. read more

Renter Beware. They will look for any opportunity to steal your deposit. They made up some charge about marks that needed to be painted over. I called the painters who allegedly did the work and they weren't aware of I was talking about... until Carie notified them. Scam city. read more

We have been coming up to Union Pier/Lakeside for a week every August for the last 10 years and have never had an experience as bad as this. Usually the houses are a little musty and outdated but at least clean. The house we were rented is filthy. My wife spent well over an hour cleaning and removing cobwebs and it's still filthy. Upon arrival, there were no bath towels in any of the bathrooms. (We did eventually find them in a laundry room.) There are no trash bags. There are spiders everywhere. Which makes it obvious that no one ever stays at the house and it's never exterminated. The front door key provided doesn't even work and we are unable to lock the house. We are paying a Ritz Carlton price for a Days Inn experience. read more

BEWARE I corresponded with Carie O'Donnell on multiple occasions via email and phone in an attempt to rent a vacation home from her. Upon discovering numerous negative reviews about her unprofessional business practices and propensity for unfairly/fraudulently retaining security deposits, I questioned her - as I was naturally concerned. First, Ms. O'Donnell denied any wrong doing - demanding to know where I found the reviews (since she clearly thought she had hidden them well) and blaming the negative reviews on one individual (the girlfriend of an ex-husband whom she is now suing??). When I provided her the link to the reviews and stated that they came from seven different individuals and all looked to be valid, she refused to rent the property to me, even though I made it clear that I was still hoping to move forward with the contract as long as she could guarantee me in writing that my party would not encounter the same issues others had alleged. Clearly she was not prepared to do so. Think long and hard before doing business with this woman, as it does not appear to end well for most, and her professionalism certainly leaves much to be desired. Update! This nut job has now emailed me and threatened to sue me because I told her I was leaving her a Yelp review... "Go ahead and I will sue you!!!!!!!! As I will also yelp you and everyone you know. You act like a child dont you! Also you will be black listed from all the rental companies so please yelp me and I send all your info to every company around!!!!!!!! As I am sure you like to yelp people." Seriously, avoid this lunatic at all costs. She's obsessed with overusing exclamation points and suing people. If you are a home owner paying this woman to represent your property - are you insane? Do you have the Internet? read more

We had the same experience as Molly from San Francisco, we rented a home in new buffalo, Mi in August. The management company Lake Effect Vaction Rentals refused to give us back $200 of our security deposit and gave us outlandish reasons: furniture was moved, towels were left in outside toy chest and blankets were taken out of plastic bags and used. We disputed all these charges and have been arguing with the owner Carie ever since. She is very unprofessional, rude and dishonest.We have also rented numerous houses over the last ten years and have never had problems before. We were also told there has been numerous complaints against this company with the better business bureau I wish we knew that before we rented from this management company. I also plan on warning prospective rentals on the vacation rentals by owner website. Hopefully the owners of the house will see this also. read more

I also had a bad experience with Lake Effect. When we arrived at our rental, it was shabby and in dire need of updating. Two lamps were broken and several closet doors were off their hinges. In addition, of the two bathrooms in our rental, the outlets in one did not work. When I notified the management about the electrical problem I was told "Oh yeah, those never work." The final straw was when we were accused of leaving a burn hole in one of the comforters even though no one in our party smokes. read more

I would NEVER recommend this company to anyone!! The worst rental experience I have ever heard of let alone dealt with first hand! The employees are rude, incompetent and unprofessional. Make sure everything they say is in writing. They are clearly profittable because most their business is done in 3 months of the year with all out of state clients! They love to bully people. I recommend staying somewhere else, like the casino, or using one of the local realty's if you are interested in staying in a vacation home. Make your rental experince a pleasure, instead of a nightmare! Take your business elsewhere! read more

what a rude,nonsupportive,rip off unprofessional company. we rented a house from them for a week. it started with the key to the house not working. then there were several things wrong with the house of which i took pictures of the worse things. little did i know i needed to be more specific because they accused us of breaking things that we did not. they with held over half of the deposit and became rude and obnoxious about the entire event. we cleaned the filthy house and left it better then we found it and all we got were accusations we did not wash towels. they repeatedly harrased us with accusations of lying. i would never use this company again and i would suggest you stay clear. arnold d. read more

I would not recommend anyone to use this rental company. The gas grill was broken and never fixed. The company slammed us with extra charges and claimed we did things that never happened. They are extremely unprofessional and downright lied to us. read more

NOT A GOOD BANG FOR YOUR BUCK My family along with another family rented this home in August of 2012. The backyard was great with a hot tub and heated pool. The interior of the home was clean but the mattresses, bedding, and the fully stocked kitchen were all of very low quality. It is not what you would expect for $4200 a week. During our stay the gas grill was malfunctioning. We called Lake Effect and they sent over a woman with a new tank of gas. After we changed the gas and determined that was not the problem she cleaned the grill. The grill was still not functioning. We requested prior to our stay that Lake Effect sign an addendum to the contract which stated if any of the appliances in the home were not in working order during our stay Lake Effect would refund $500.00. Lake Effect refused to refund the $500.00 and charged us $200.00 for extra cleaning fees. The cleaning service said that we moved furniture, left wet towels in the pool box and used extra comforters and sheets at the rental. These were all blatant lies. Carie at Lake Effect said she would forward pictures which the maid service took. The pictures were blurry Xeroxes of photos which were not date stamped and could have been taken two years ago. I called the New Buffalo Chamber of Commerce and they had never heard of "Linda's Cleaning Service" and this company is not incorporated in the State of Michigan. This management company is unprofessional and dishonest. Make sure you take photos before you checkout so you can answer to any false allegations made by the bogus cleaning service "Linda's Cleaning Service" Do your homework (don't just take my word for it) if you plan to rent from them or it will cost you$$$$$$ read more

The nice experience of renting a vacation home is completely overshadowed by the HORRIFIC experience of dealing with the home's management company -- Lake Effect Vacation Rentals and its owner. The owner of the management company is unorganized, unprofessional, rude and dishonest. She was nice until she received our money; after that, she was unhelpful and downright nasty, refusing to answer basic questions. We have rented MANY upscale homes throughout the country and never once had our deposit even questioned. Lake Effect Vacation Rentals withheld our deposit based on completely false accusations. When I called to discuss the situation, the company owner stated that she "never had any intention of keeping the entire deposit, but rather sent the inflammatory letter in order to get [my] attention." Very professional. Given that I'm at the end of difficult pregnancy, my husband called her to follow up on the matter as he didn't want me having any further stressful interaction with her. His entire goal was to discuss things politely and calmly and come to a peaceful resolution. She hung up on him almost immediately and then proceeded to write hostile emails. She has refused to discuss or prove her false allegations for withholding our deposit. Lest you think my review reflects an isolated incident or is that of a bitter, irresponsible renter, please look up Lake Effect Vacation rentals on www.merchantcircle.com and you will see that what we experienced is a pattern of behavior that the owner of the company exhibits. There are also multiple claims against her company with the Better Business Bureau. I only wish I had done this due diligence before renting this house. The house is not worth having to deal with the management company's unethical business practices. [UPDATE: ONCE THE MANAGEMENT CO DISCOVERED THAT I WOULD WRITE AN HONEST REVIEW OF MY EXPERIENCE WITH THEM, THEY DELETED THEIR ACCOUNT WITH MERCHANT CIRCLE, SO THAT NONE OF THE MANY MANY NEGATIVE REVIEWS ARE VISIBLE. THE COMPANY'S OWNER HAS ALSO BEGUN SENDING THREATENING EMAILS AND HAS ACKNOWLEDGED IN WRITING THAT SHE HAS ILLEGALLY RECORDED PRIVATE PHONE CONVERSATIONS.] read more

I rented a home for a weekend with this company in 2011 and my experience has been quite consistent with several of the reviews already posted on here. Unfortunately at the time a Yelp page didn't exist for this joke of a company, so I had to post reviews on other sites which I can mysteriously no longer find. My experience was so memorable (in the worst way possible), however, that I decided to follow-up with a negative review several years later. The company made claims on damages that did not exist and were inconsistent with the lease document, refused to backup its allegations with evidence (valid photos or cleaning invoices), and retained our entire security deposit even though we left the home in great shape. Carie was unprofessional, immature, closed-minded, and I would not recommend this company to anyone. I truly hope consumers are aware enough to do a little research online prior to working with Lake Effect Vacation Rentals, and if they still choose to do business that they understand the risks associated with their security deposit. read more