It started with the smell; not quite rotten meat, but something that smelled mysteriously like rotten meat. Hearing the old "body under the bed" urban legend story a few too many times, I was a little worried. Having stuffed the travel agent's number in the bottom of my suitcase, just to ensure it wasn't lost or forgotten, we decided to deal with the smell first by spraying the helpful can of air freshener left in the bathroom and make the call later. We left a message with the agent, and went about the rest of the day.

The next clue something was wrong came when we found the mouse droppings under the sink; something inevitable in the country. The dead bird however, was something that should have been remedied. It wasn't new either, but almost petrified on the floor, trapped between the stove and refrigerator in the kitchen. That compared with the two dead mice we found in the closet made us less than happy.

The agent admitted that it had been some time since the house was rented, but promised that she would do what she could to fix things. Trying to calm my nerves, I turned on the television and discoverednothing. The listing assured us of cable in the house, but it didn't exist. The rental house was fairly isolated and ran only on a satellite dish, which had fallen down after a storm and was never repaired. The agent once again assured us that it was "being taken care of", and that a representative would be there the next day.

Ready to go to bed, and forget the madness of the day, we wandered upstairs to the loft and collapsed in bed, only to wake up a few minutes later with the sound of water dripping through the ceiling. Not only did the roof have holes in it, but the holes were almost directly over the bed. To compound matters, the storm did nothing to lower the unexpected heat wave, and the air conditioner stopped working on the second day.

Our contract called for one week in the vacation home rental, but on Day 3 we packed up our things and moved into the nearest hotel. That was the day that we learned there was no trash pickup in the area and we were required to drive our trash to the county dump 15 miles away. By then we were exhausted; we had no air conditioner, the roof leaked, there was no television, dead animals were in the house, we had 2 bags of trash with nowhere to take it, and the smell was still there, only now we were afraid to investigate.

The problems could have been avoided if we had done a little more research, and gone with a more reputable company, but we wanted to spend our money on the vacation home itself and not just finding one. Make sure you do your research, and better yet talk to people that live in the area, and ask them for advice.

Learn more about this author, Jennifer Eblin.
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