Complaint Review: Hunt Great Vacations

ELLICOTTVILLE'S HUNT GREAT VACATIONS NIGHTMARE!!!!

On the weekend of March 9-11 2007, we had planned a winter getaway to celebrate Ellicottville, NY Mardi Gras festivities. We contacted a rental agent at Hunt GREAT Vacations, (a division of Hunt Real Estate Corporation). www.huntgreatvacations.com We were scheduled to stay at the Tucker Cabin, located in a picturesque country setting. There were three couples that were planning on enjoying a fun filled weekend away from our busy and hectic lives. Our initial impression was an adorable, tastefully decorated rental vacation home. There was even the discussion of the possibility of buying, if the home were to ever enter the real estate market.

Later that evening as we were getting ready to go to sleep, we all realized that there was something wrong with our GREAT vacation rental. We found choke berries and mouse feces in all of the pillow cases, sheets, blankets and towels. We later realized that the choke berries were items that mice were storing as food. We immediately tried to contact www.huntgreatvacations.com to find that they were closed for the evening. The following morning we again called the rental agent to discuss our concerns and to find what could be done to rectify the situation. We were informed that new linens and towels would be sent to us. After waiting SIX HOURS and several follow up phone calls, we finally received our fresh linens. In these linens, there were only bottom sheets and couple of towels. The blankets never arrived. This extremely long wait added to our frustration and prevented us from truly enjoying our relaxing weekend in Ellicottville. We had planned to go into town to visit the various shops and restaurants. In addition to the cleanliness issue, the rental agency failed to have the driveway salted. There was over two inches of ice accumulated on the driveway.

We planned on discussing this matter with management on Sunday when we dropped off the key. We spoke to Leigh (General Manager/ Co-Owner) She stated that bringing clean linens was a courtesy not an obligation. What sort of business ethic is it that allows a property manager to believe that paying customers sleeping in fecal infested bedding is permissible? Leigh refused to take care of this matter at that time. She informed us that the home was cleaned 3 weeks prior to our arrival. We also found that hunt was aware of this problem prior to our renting. Two weeks later when we finally heard from her, she stated that the owners refused to compensate us at all. The cost for the rental of this unit was $500.00. This included a $125.00 cleaning fee. I replied that the least that she could do was to give us the cleaning fee back since the place was not clean. She refused and got annoyed with my persistence and began to belittle us, saying that, that sort of thing is expected in a cabin in the woods and that if we would have stayed in a condominium in town that sort of thing would not have happened.

She proceeded to tell me how she is a business woman and asked me what I do for a living, really trying to seem superior. It was rather pathetic. Her gross negligence as an unfair business woman reflects not only on the Hunt Real Estate's character, but on the quaint tourist driven industry of Ellicottville. I truly feel the ineptitude in the way the matter was handled or not handled is a clear representation of corporate greed. It is clearly evident that once this management agency receives their payment they are not obligated to fulfill their contractual responsibilities. We feel that this is not fair business practice. As we all know in the business world it is clearly imperative that word of mouth experience is a powerful tool at developing your client base. This company obviously doesn't care about taking care of customer relations. The next time you wish to obtain a rental property in Ellicottville, I highly suggest that Hunt Great Vacations is not a business for you to patronize.


Link to House
http://www.huntgreatvacations.com/book/house.html?PMSUnitID=TUCKER&Avail=4/14/2007&Stay=2

Please check out these links. If you don't already know what hantavirus is, educate yourself to protect yourself and family from a deadly disease, caused from mouse droppings.
http://www.cdc.gov/search.do?action=search&queryText=mouse+droppings&x=16&y=8
http://www.cdc.gov/ncidod/diseases/hanta/hps/noframes/printgenlsection.htm
http://w2.health.state.ny.us/query.html?col=nysdoh&qt=hantavirus&search.x=11&search.y=6

Marguerite
West Seneca, New York
U.S.A.