First off, the last 20 years or so we have stayed in many vacation rentals throughout Spain, Italy, France and the US. Accordingly, we have a fair idea of what to expect based on a web description with shiny photos. Our basic expectation is a clean apartment, with all the items as promised online, in working condition.
In this particular rental case, we let the owner know we will be arriving late (around 22:00), and were promised that the housekeeper will meet us there with the keys, introduce the apartment and answer any questions we might have. We were appreciative of this, but did not believe we are asking for too much... after all, one expects a level of flexibility, and 22:00 is not the middle of the night...
Our trouble started with the key delivery, which was a real mess, instead of the housekeeper, somebody else showed up with NO English knowledge, clueless, and with a rude attitude. I did not rent it your apartment from him, but he behaved like we owe him gratitude... and until I called the owner's number, he was not even willing to give us the key he had (apparently the spare key was missing), promising to bring us another set the next day...
The living room lights and some of the nightstand lights were not functioning, and in contrast to the VRBO description, no microwave oven was available at the time of our rental... After sunset, we had to open the toilet door to use its light to provide some visibility in the living/dining room area...
However, the biggest issue we had was the dirty and smelly bed linens... they gave us the impression that even though we had been charged for a cleaning fee, fresh linens have not been provided for us (we had to cover the bed with our spare towels in order to somehow mask the odor)... the same lack of cleaning has also been observed in the bathroom... the toilet brush... it was disgusting!
When these issues were related to the owner, he went off on a rant, about how ungrateful we are about the late arrive accommodation, that we had nothing nice to say about the apartment, and that we failed to water the flowers and they died in the summer heat (in 3 days and 4 nights?)... he finished lecturing us that if we want 5 star hotel accommodations, we should next time stay at a 5 star hotel!!!
Wow! Clean linens and bathrooms, functioning lights, etc... are traits of 5-star accommodations?? VRBO should advise owners about their minimum expectations!
The property could have been managed so much better!