On Christmas Eve night, the heating suddenly quit. Power was still on, thermostat still on, but no heat. This was during Winter Storm Elliott, and it was COLD. The temperature dropped rapidly in the house. I spent nearly 4 hours on phone and text with Vacasa's so-called support, who could give me nothing better than "I have put in a request to the local team, someone will call you soon." Finally at 1:00 AM a woman told me she could give us another place. That was their solution: that we pack up my elderly mother and geriatric dog, and all our stuff, load up the car, and drive down the steep, pitch-black, icy mountain road to some unknown location, all in the middle of the night.
This was supposed to be the night we celebrated and remembered my father, who passed in October. Instead I spent it trying to get someone to help us fix the heat. Not even necessarily to come out, but at least to tell me what to do to fix it. We finally just gave up and went to bed, piling on all the blankets we could find along with all our clothes and towels.
Christmas morning the heat came back on and the house slowly warmed. Finally someone called me, and said that probably the exhaust pipe had frozen. I asked if he would be coming to fix it: "Nah, it's working now." I asked if it was likely to happen again: "Naw, it shouldn't get cold enough to freeze again." I asked if there was anything we could do to ensure it didn't happen again: "Nope, don't worry about it." That exhaust pipe needs to be winterized -- literally just wrapped in a few dollars worth of insulation -- but they clearly just don't care.
We should have cut our losses and left. But where were we going to go on Christmas day? With a dog? So we stayed, and sure enough it went out again overnight. I woke up Monday morning to the sound of my beloved mother shivering and desperately cold. I built the hottest fire I could, which warmed the place about 3 degrees, and we got packed up as quickly as we could and left. There has been no follow-up from Vacasa about any of this.
This was our first Christmas without Dad, and it was always going to be hard. But this whole situation was salt in the wound. We just wanted to get out of town and try to have a pleasant Christmas. This wasn't it, and I cannot recommend booking with this property manager, Vacasa, because their support is a joke.