Things have been quiet here on the Dollops front recently
because I was away on vacation. Overall, the trip was great. We had good weather, lots of laughs with family, and the kids had a blast. The only
downfall? The vacation house. In the past, this crew of people (10 adults and
10 small children) has rented houses in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. We
LOVE it there. The houses are huge, on the beach, and reasonably priced. The
only problem with the OBX is that none of us live anywhere near it. With our
baby army growing exponentially we needed to find a more local spot this year
so we decided on Cape Cod. We knew from the beginning that we would be paying
more money for a smaller house that included a drive to the beach and we were okay
with that. Well we thought we were okay with it at least.
Upon first glance (and online) the house on the Cape seemed
like it would be just fine but in the end it turned out to feel more like the house
from the movie The Money Pit. To start the house had no air conditioning and it
was during a heat wave. Now the no AC was not a surprise and since we don’t
have AC in our own house it normally wouldn’t be an issue. However, none of the
windows or sliding doors had screens in them (or if they did they had HUGE rips
in them). So in order to get any fresh air in the house you also had to invite
in all the bugs and other wildlife that wanted to venture in. I nearly died
when I saw a chipmunk running through the house as if he owned it. “Chip” was
later spotted again in the house and truth be told I’m beginning to think he
may have lived IN the house.
Now in the home owner’s defense he did supply us with a
window air conditioner that he had plugged in to an extension cord. Now I know
very little about electrical work but I do know that you don’t plug an AC in to
an extension cord. Sure enough a few hours after our arrival my brother in law
noticed that the cord was melting and we were most likely a few hours away from
a fire. Imagine the kind of blog post I could have written if the house burned
down!
So beyond the heat, critters, and potential fire, the house
was dirty – just dirty. The owner said that he has cleaning people come in each
week but I have no idea how that could be true. Unless of course, the cleaning
crew is blind. There was dust an inch thick on shelves, tvs, etc. There were
colonies of spider webs by the ceilings. I found pretzels under the bed that
the kids were in -we never ate pretzels on our trip. The counters were covered
with ants.
On top of that, the hot water (or lack thereof) in the house
was ridiculous. Now I understand it’s a big house with lots of people so it’s
understandable that some showers might be cold or we would need to plan around
running the dishwasher, etc. Nope, the water was just total hit or miss. At one
time we were the only ones home, no other water was running, and poor Henry
ended up having the coldest shower of his life because one minute in the hot
water simply stopped. But somewhere that we never seemed to have an issue with
hot water was in the washing machine which only ran super-hot even when you had
it on cold. I ended up having a load of laundry ruined with a towel that bled
even though it has been washed numerous times and never had an issue.
Another highlight was when me and another sis in law were helping
a third sis in law down the stairs since she had hurt her ankle (and later
ended up in the ER) and while hobbling down the stairwell the light goes out.
It was basically anything that could go wrong would go wrong with the house. So really the list of things just goes on and on and on. Oh,
and did I mention the house had no internet?
So yeahhhhhhh…worst house ever. Luckily,
we went with the glass half full outlook and had an amazingly, fabulous
vacation regardless!
