We arrived and immediately recognized that the cabin had not been cleaned -- or at least cleaned…read morewell. We accepted it, requested a vacuum cleaner, and cleaned for the next hour and a half. There were crumbs on the couch, dust on the coffee table, an ashtray with cigarettes still in it, a stained and uncleaned refrigerator/freezer interior, and a couple mouse droppings on the kitchen counter. We weren't too concerned with the mouse droppings; we understood that the cabins sit next to deep woods and that there might be the occasional pest. We also assumed the manager/owners were making a concerted effort to deal with any stray mouse.
We looked around for some cleaning supplies and found them... in the filthiest closet I've ever seen (see photo). Also found: More mouse droppings.
After cleaning, I sat down on the couch and immediately sank down to the floor, my knees sitting at my chin. Oh well, we had a chuckle, but at least the cabin was clean, or at least as clean as we could get it.
After we returned from dinner in town, we sat down on the bed to watch some television. About 10 minutes into the movie, my wife yelled, "Oh my god there's a mouse!" Normally we aren't that alarmed, but this mouse was descending the wall (of rough-hewn wood) and onto a high shelf that sits over the television. I stood up on the bed and tried scaring the mouse back into the hole it came from. The hole itself I believe was an old stovepipe hole tastefully covered with some kind of framework. That cover was loose and the mouse had managed to easily squeeze through. This is when I noticed the mouse droppings on the uncleaned top shelf (see photo)!
I spent the next 15 minutes trying to usher the mouse out the back door. I pulled the couch away to scare the mouse from its hiding place, and that's when I discovered the mother lode of mouse droppings. That's when we realized there was not actually a huge effort being applied to keep the cabin clean. Yes, we did find a mouse trap, but it was filthy and dusty, had been set off some time ago, and was without bait. I tried resetting it with bait but it would not work. This was the extent of the owner's efforts at rodent control. If you live next to deep woods, you might want to increase that effort.
I went to the owner's house, which is on the property, to ask for more traps and duct tape to seal the frame over the hole. They had no duct tape but offered some shipping tape. And they had no traps save for two older traps with no bait which were offered to us much too late. I took the tape back to the cabin where my wife informed me a second mouse had emerged, immediately running past my wife, over to and climbing to the kitchen counter. That mouse bit through a couple food packages before my wife shooed it away; it climbed over the toaster (which I should have checked for droppings), up the wall and into a loft area unseen.
My wife and I retreated to the living room/bedroom area to decide what to do next, and that's when we saw the THIRD mouse come out of the wall, descend to and run across the bed. Now there were three mice in the cabin, AND, we still heard more scratchings inside the wall from where the mice were coming -- there was a nest of mice!!! That's when we decided it was time to leave.
I called a hotel and was lucky to get a room at 10:30 pm. (I'll have a glowing review of Savanna Inn and Suites later.) The girl/owner/manager showed up at the cabin around this time to offer the aforementioned traps. I asked if they had a refund policy, to which she said yes. She then told us about the mice, "Well, it's not really our fault." That was the clincher; we threw all of our stuff into our bags and left for the hotel.
I've since tried several times to get a hold of the owners/manager of the Nest to ask for a refund -- (nor was I able to find a policy on their site). They haven't responded to any of those requests in any way, shape, or form. I still hope we can get our money back, but I'm scared some future potential customers are going to contract hantavirus.
