First, I want to say how cool this place could be for a group. It is very private and feels like camp, with a big deck and a horseshoe pit and a pond right out back to paddle around. Unfortunately our use and enjoyment of the place was limited by a pretty serious problem of bats nesting in the walls of the house. We heard them squeaking inside the walls while going to sleep the first night (thankfully a close midnight inspection with flashlight confirmed that they were not in the bedroom itself, but the proximity was disconcerting). Then, the next day, I noticed two large piles of what looked like rodent droppings and shredded insulation where the deck meets the house. Looking up, I could see bats crawling in and out of a gap between the wall and the roofline. I wasn’t super pleased to have them so close (just a few feet from the sliding glass door connecting the house to the outside), but was more disturbed by the large mounds of droppings on the ground. Luckily we didn’t have our dog with us, so we just Clorox wiped all the eating surfaces and I told my family to steer clear of the area with the droppings and bat activity. It would have been impossible to keep a dog from getting into that.
Unfortunately, when evening fell, the bats starting swooping in and out, flying low over the deck/patio area, and no one wanted to be outside anymore. That’s too bad since the deck is probably the best part of the house, but it just didn’t feel safe or comfortable for my family. Let me be clear that we live in a rural area and are comfortable with wildlife. We have bats over our backyard and flitting overhead whenever we walk the dog in the evening. But I was not comfortable having them buzzing us as we ate dinner or flying so close to my daughter.
I emailed the contact for the house as soon as I discovered the bat problem. He responded quickly and said he’d call pest control. That was on Friday; we checked out on Sunday without having heard anything else. I followed up with the owner/manager afterward to let him know that it was a real problem for us, but I never heard back.
Overall, this place has real potential to be a great getaway. And I understand that some degree of rustic-ness is to be expected at a cabin in the woods. But for the price we paid (almost $500/night with fees), I would have expected much more attention paid to cleanliness and safety. And certainly would have appreciated more/better communication once the problem was raised.