Avoid 191 Nubble Road in York, Maine. I made the mistake of renting it for a family vacation and it was a terrible experience. The agent gave no clear directions on how to find the unit on the multi-building property (two buildings are identical, so a sign on an inner door, INSIDE a screened-in porch, behind other buildings, is a little ridiculous) and no clear instructions on where to park ("behind the unit"--you've just arrived and have to leave the car somewhere, so which unit?), so owner's husband was rude and snide when we parked where it said 191 Nubble Road--terrible way to start a vacation. Also, the website has since been changed when I pointed out that the view they had advertised as water and rocky shoreline was nowhere to be seen. The view is actually of the parking lot of Fox's Lobster restaurant, because the cottage is IN the parking lot, and part of the Fox's and Brown's business complex, and you and your vacation will have to take a back seat to their business operation. I've always found an owner or agent leaves an instruction sheet on the details. None was provided beyond some general info in the lease. The first morning, no one in my family could figure out how to make water come out of the shower head. I saw the man who made the snide remark about where I'd parked, and asked if he knew anything about the shower. He acted like he was really put out, and like we were idiots (there's a metal disc at the rim of the tub spout you can't see that you're supposed to pull down.) The first or second morning, a painter is right outside the door saying, "I'll only be here a few minutes". He was there every morning of our vacation. The next day, the painter was joined by a guy on a riding lawn mower who narrowly missed me bringing in my groceries (the cottage is about 8 feet from the owner's house). The following day, the painter was joined by another lawn guy, and a third person, a gardener, was right outside the windows planting flowers. The area is also the employees' path to and from Fox's, so they're walking past the windows each day, too. It's ok if you don't mind strangers right outside the windows where your kids are staying. This is in July--high season (and rates), not the off-season when owners usually work on their properties.. On the second morning, the painter asked me to move my car to "where the employees park". The third morning (bear in mind, first day he said he'd only be there a few minutes), I look out, and he's got a ladder set up right above my newly leased car, not a week off the car lot, and there's pain splatter on the rear tail light, and he starts berating and taunting me when I asked him why he hadn't let me know he was back so I could move my car. The place was advertised as having WiFi. It doesn't, unless you find it acceptable to have to perch at a single window-sill closest to the owner's house so only one device at a time can piggyback on the owner's weak signal. (No cellphone service, and of course, no landline, either). No instructions on where to leave trash. Rental agent texted back: in the dumpster at Fox's Lobster restaurant. You get the picture. You are not on vacation. You are a cog in the Fox's Lobster/Brown's Ice Cream business complex.
When I arrived, the living room lamps were all unplugged. A table lamp was unplugged in the middle of the loft bedroom floor, the night stand was in the middle of the room, and a used, dirty paper plate, plastic fork and plastic Red Cup were left under the bed. Chocolate was stuck in the dining room rug. The last renter's old used coffee grounds were left in the coffee machine. In another bedroom, someone's dirty hairbrush was left under the bureau. And you've paid an extra cleaning fee for this. One of the porch rockers was broken (will you get your security deposit back if no one can prove it was broken when you got there? I did get mine back. The two roaches I found, one in the loft bedroom and one inside the screened porch) turned out to be only "wood roaches", but the place may look Martha Stewart, but it was NOT clean. This was not the first time my family rented at the Nubble, but I won't be back to York any time soon. I grew up loving this area of Maine. It will be a long time before I return. read more
