We have lived in our rental home in North Myrtle Beach, South Carolina for one week now and the time is flying by us. The house is beautiful and like a typical winter beach rentals, it is much to large for our family. The living space is actually up on the second and third stories, reserving the first floor for parking, pool, and storage.
Entering the second floor is the entrance way and a common game room area equipped with a very large TV, a foozball table, and air hockey. There are also three bedrooms, and laundry available.
Upstairs on the third floor is a massive great room that dwarfs the 52" TV and overlooks the Atlantic ocean from two blocks away. The enormous kitchen is something like 53 drawers and cabinets (most are understandably un-stocked so we are assuming it's just to create vast counter spaces?). There are also two master bedrooms on the third floor, rounding the total bedroom count to five bedrooms and six bathrooms. Yup, like I said, WAY to big for our needs! But when this house was priced the same as most of the tiny condos in the are, we figured, "why not?!" Once we picked out the bedrooms we wanted, we closed the doors to the others so as not to waste heat/air conditioning.
Outside on the first floor is an amazing outdoor entertainment area. Since it's winter weather for folks in South Carolina, none of the furniture is out of storage for us, but below is a few photos from the HomeAway listing. Once it warms up I think we might drag out some of the furniture to enjoy some outdoor time, but right now it's just too fridgid for us as well We're hoping for some warmer weather soon so we can hopefully at least enjoy the hot tub spa - ahhhhhhhhh, relaxing!
Despite how big and beautiful this house is, it does come with a bunch of mishaps. The house wasn't occupied for almost two months now and unfortunately, a professional cleaning crew was not hired post the previous renters. The first night we spent mopping the floors and cleaning the bathrooms - yuck!! - and let the owner know (who was clearly disappointed in his property manager.) It's also unfortunate that the heated pool and hot tub aren't actually heating (or clean for that matter) because the pool maintenance crew couldn't come out for another week. Like I mentioned before, it was ok for us since it has been unusually cold (barely 40*F during the days and below freezing at nights-brrrr!) but once it warms up, I hope we can utilize the amenities! And of course the grill was moldy and missing the bottom try so the open flame was practically on the propane tank - yikes! So we couldn't use it for Super Bowl weekend, and we have a funny feeling we won't get a replacement anytime soon. After communicating with the owner, and a little patience and elbow grease cleaning the house for ourselves, the house is may not be working like a vacation rental, but is finally functioning for our month-long living needs.
We are finding that things happen much slower in the south, if not at all. We have learned quickly that up in the north east these are things that folks get angry about and demand fixes. Down here, it seems there is a laid-back acceptance that even if you wanted to complain, no one is really willing to do anything about it. It's humbling to learn that it's not out of laziness, but out of lack of motivation. Brian's father works in the condo rental business and said these are common occurrences and usually accepted as "it is what it is." He explained that cleaning crews are paid less then $6/hour and are expected to finish cleaning within an hour. Retention must be a big issue for these companies because employees just fail to come to work instead of properly quitting so it's not uncommon for rental properties to go uncleaned until a renter finally complains. (This is what made us want to launder our own sheets and towels right away!) It's sobering to not get angry to complain on the condition of such a beautiful home and humbling that so many people who work in this area can be poor. We kept it simple and just notified the owner of the status of the rental when we arrived so we wouldn't be accountable for things we didn't do/didn't break once we leave.
Anyway, I would still recommend this house to folks, especially large groups! This house is in a great location for walks to the beach, an insane amount of restaurants and shops in the area only a few blocks away along Rt17, and only a 5-10minute drive to multiple grocery stores and post offices for mailing February Valentine's! This week we have been lucky to find multiple playgrounds and even a dog park for Doodles to run off-leash (not that most places are labeled with "dogs on leash at all times").