My husband and I rented one of Sand Stays properties in Biddeford, ME
Property: Renovated Apartment in Biddeford With Water View (8 Piersons Lane)
The photos of this place online are admittedly fantastic, but looks are deceiving. We should have known better with the price being so much cheaper than other properties in the area. You are absolutely getting what you pay for here.
When we drove up I was so disappointed. From the outside the place looked a little rundown. Property not maintained, overgrown, cracked and weedy driveway, wonky garage doors. I thought maybe it's just the outside? We found the front door, actually you enter 1 door to a covered porch with a door for each unit. Ugh, not just the outside. Entry porch dusty, dead bugs, lots of dog hair and not welcoming or clean. We opened the door to the unit. It is definitely the property in the pictures. Smells funny. Never could pinpoint the smell, maybe a house that used to be heated with oil and the oil tank is still in the basement. We looked around. 'Fully renovated' is laughable. Essentially someone bought a property and slapped a whole lot of white paint on the inside and called it good to rent (and apparently fully renovated, ha-ha). Hole in the wall that I can literally see outside thru, greasy handprints on walls, pet hair covered furniture, broken down sectional, missing fire alarm. Cabinet over the fridge was literally just sawed off to a height to accommodate the fridge and left.... sawdust and all. Open a cabinet and they have only painted inside as far as they could reach. Open another and it looks like no one bothered to wipe it out ever, dust bits, spider webs, bug carcasses. None of this is making us feel like the place is clean. Cleanliness aside, no hangers anywhere in the property or anything else to hang a shirt/dress up with or on. No nightstands, nowhere besides the floor to put suitcases. No shampoo as 'amenities' state. No place to hang up your towel in the bathroom.
We've paid for 5 nights already so my husband and I decide to tough it out. Night one a little rough in a double bed since my husband and I are used to a king. No biggie we'll survive. My husband showers the next morning after walking around the place barefoot the previous day, the black is pouring off his feet. Floors definitely not clean. Glad I never took off my shoes! Next night my husband decided to sleep in the other bed to give us both a bit more room. He pulls back the sheets and there is a huge stain (urine?) in the middle of the sheets. Mind you these are not white sheets they are dark gray. Neither mattress has any mattress cover between them and the sheets. And yes, I did check for bedbugs. Urine-stained sheets was the finally straw in grossness for us. We barely slept that night and left early the next morning after 2 days of our 5 day stay.
Here's where it gets interesting.
When I booked the property, I received a nice email from Derek DeCesere confirming the booking. I sent him back a question and got a response immediately. Nine days prior to our stay, I received a text from Derek telling me if I have any questions, I can text him back at this number. Five days prior to our stay, I received another text asking if we wanted to check in a day or two sooner as they had available nights. Two days prior to our stay, I received another email letting me know we would get check-in info the day prior to our stay. The day prior to our stay, I received an email with all our check in/access info. Lots of communication in the month leading up to our stay. We left the property early morning after our second night. I emailed Derek to let him know that we had vacated the property 2 days into our 5 stay and why. No response! Early that afternoon I copied the email and sent it via text as well as sent an email to bookings@sandstays.com, the email provided under 'contact us' on their website. No response! The day after we left, I get a text from Derek asking if we wanted to stay extra nights as they had availability. WTF?! I responded to that text by copying my original text/email that we had vacated the property and why. No response! Two days after we had left the property, I received both text and email with checkout instructions. Again, WTF?! I replied to both the email and text with a copy of my original email that we had checkout of the property after 2 days. No response!
My husband and I have rented properties all over the world for vacations and have never had an experience like this. This property is listed on VRBO, Airbnb, Expedia, Orbitz, Sandstays.com, TripAdvisor, Google, BringFido, FRBO, Rentbyowner and I cannot say strongly enough DO NOT STAY HERE! As if the property itself was not bad enough the absolute ghosting by the property manager is inexcusable! read more