1st Choice Florida Vacation Rentals

The house we rented was a NIGHTMARE and First Choice FL vacation rentals ARE A COMPLETE JOKE!!!! I posted a review on their FB page and ten minutes later the entire review section was removed!! Let me start by saying, when we planned this vacation, there was a total of 8 of us and we were planning a trip for my friends birthday. The pictures were beautiful and we were all so excited about staying here. The pictures of this house are completely deceiving. The downstairs of the house, which is through the garage, has no staircase leading upstairs. You have to either go through the garage and walk up 20 stairs to enter the main part of the house or go outside and walk up the 20 stairs leading up to the deck and back door. That should absolutely be listed in the description. The room with the twin beds, or should I say “living room” is a complete joke. There’s one bathroom inside the bedroom and it’s the size of a cruise ship bathroom. The upstairs of the house was decent and well kept, no complaints there. Here’s where the nightmare begins…. Chapter 1 – Broken air conditioning unit in downstairs bedroom. The air conditioning unit in the bedroom was blowing hot air from the minute we entered the home. We called Cindy, who works for the rental agency and she said she would send someone out to fix it. Our check in date was on Thursday and the maintenance guy, Jack, didn’t show up until mid-day Friday. My friend and I waited on him to arrive and when he came in, he was already irritated. He opened the AC unit and pulled out the air filter that looked like it hadn’t been changed in YEARS!!!!!!!! It was solid black with several inches of dust collected on it. He chuckled and said “well this is probably why the unit isn’t working”, as he put a new filter in. He went out into the living room area where the two twin beds are located and changed the filter on that unit as well, because it was equally disgusting. Jack started messing around with the ac unit in the bedroom and it shut off while he was working on it. He said “well this unit is shot, do you want this changed while you’re here?” and I said “yes, I can’t sleep in this room without AC, its miserable”. Well, he laughed and said “well it’s Florida, you’re supposed to be hot” and said he’d work on finding a unit to replace it. He was unnecessarily rude the entire time. All I wanted was to have AC in the bedroom where I was sleeping. I left a voicemail for Cindy to call me back regarding the situation and she never did!! From Thursday to Tuesday, I slept without AC and was sweating every single night. I barely slept at all the entire week!!! Chapter 2 – The Jeep in the garage On night 2, it was 2:30 in the morning and we were all sleeping. I was in the bedroom, in the garage, and all of the sudden a horn starts blowing nonstop. It was SO LOUD and was right in my face!! I jumped out of bed and my other friends that were sleeping in the two twin beds had jumped up. We were all in a complete panic! I opened the garage door and the Jeep was covered with a car cover and connected to a battery charger, was going absolute haywire. The horn was blasting so loud and would not go off. I had to go outside in the pouring down rain, run up 20 stairs and beat on the door to wake up my friends to try to ask for help. It was complete and utter chaos!! Finally, the horn went off by itself after about 7 minutes. The neighbors next door woke up also. There’s not really an explanation as to why this happened, maybe something to do with the battery charger being connected to it. Maybe ghosts? I’m not really sure. Chapter 3 – The hot tub The hot tub was great until we all realized that there was so much chlorine in it that it burned our skin and eyes. It also changed the color blonde in my hair. DO NOT PAY $100 TO USE TO THE HOT TUB!!!! ITS NOT WORTH THE BURNING ON YOUR SKIN AND EYES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Ridiculous! Chapter 4 – Landscaping people showing up unexpectedly On Saturday morning at 9am, most of the house was still asleep, landscapers showed up for regular upkeep on the property and were so loud with their leaf blowers and equipment that it woke up the entire house. WE WERE NOT TOLD ANYONE WOULD BE SHOWING UP TO DO LANDSCAPING ON THE PROPERTY!!!!!!!!!!! Chapter 5 – Breathing in dirt, mold, and whatever else in that house. EVERYONE IS SICK! I’m not sure if this is a result of the air filters not being changed, but everyone in the house couldn’t breathe and was continuously sneezing while we were in the house. The minute we stepped outside, it cleared up for everyone. There needs to be some kind of maintenance done on the air filters or AC units in this house because it’s no joke. Maybe someone needs to also check for mold. I have asthma and had to continuously use my inhaler while I was there and THE ONLY TIME I ever have to use my inhaler is when I’m sick or am allergic to something. Chapter 6 – The broken, rickety sliding door on the upstairs deck The door is broken and won’t slid open very well and anyone who is downstairs would think a tornado has just hit the house. If you’re sleeping downstairs and someone upstairs slides the back door open, it shakes the entire bedroom and sounds like something is falling through the house. Chapter 7 – Dealing with the rental company Tuesday morning when we were leaving, we went by the rental office to drop off the keys. On the way home, we discussed all of the issues we had on the trip and were going to contact the rental company to see if we would be able to get a partial refund due to all of the troubles we encountered. To our surprise, they charged us $100 for damages because cigarette ashes were found in the garage next to the pool table. There were ash trays located all over the house, including two in the garage, so we all assumed smoking outside was ok. After calling to talk about all of the issues we had during our stay, they were so focused on making sure they charged us the fee for damages and were completely unsympathetic towards all of the other issues we had. $100 is nothing, that’s not the argument here at all. It’s the purpose of the whole situation here and how terrible we were treated during our stay, the fact no one cared that people were sleeping without AC and did not even bother to call us back, and these people do not care about any issue we had at all during our stay!!! Not to mention the fact the entire group had bronchitis or upper respiratory issues are returning home from our stay. AVOID ANY VACATION HOME THROUGH THIS RENTAL COMPANY! THEY DO NOT CARE ABOUT YOU, THEY ONLY CARE ABOUT YOUR MONEY!! I included a screenshot that was taken from a previous review, claiming they also had issues breathing and that their baby got sick due to mold!!!

During our stay we encountered quite a few issues. The first was the AC unit that was not working. On the paperwork for First Choice Florida Vacation Rentals, this is considered an emergency and noted if after hours call the emergency line. I spoke with Cindy Thursday night (our first night there) and she was super sweet and said she would have someone out on Friday. Come late Friday afternoon ( around 2:45pm) Jack (the contractor) shows up and is acting like doing his job is an inconvenience for him and like he did not want to be there. After he was huffing and puffing and poking around he opened the unit and said "this could be the problem" while pointing at a filter that looks like it may have never been changed. As he was working on that the unit completely died (previously it would turn on but only blow hot air) and he said the unit was shot. He asked us if we wanted it to be replaced during our stay and we responded that we would like it to be taken care of asap. He then sighed, rolled his eyes and stated that the unit was a strange size and could be hard to replace and he followed that up with "you are vacationing in Florida, it's supposed to be hot". After he left we called and left a voicemail to let the rental company know how rude Jack was and that the issue was not fixed by the time he left. At that point, we never received a call back or any communication on what was happening with the AC unit. The two people that stayed in that room were miserable the whole trip and slept on the couches upstairs a couple nights. Secondly, everyone in the house felt ill every morning but would feel better in the afternoon after leaving the house and a few people have come home sick. I ended up personally having to go to the doctor to only find out I have bronchitis which could be caused by staying in a place that has mold. Knowing what the air filters in the AC units downstairs looked like, I would not be surprised if there was mold somewhere in the home as well. On Friday at about 2:30am the whole house was woken up by the Jeep's (I am assuming the homeowners car that was in the garage) horn blasting off for a few minutes straight. After some research it could be a part that is going bad on the Jeep (at first we all thought it was haunted) but that was an inconvenience none the less. The hot tub we paid extra to use was basically unusable due to the high amount of chlorine burning everyone'e eyes. A landscaping crew came early Saturday morning with no notice about this. We were however informed someone may be coming to clean the hot tub which was appreciated. There were no stairs inside of the house. We chose this house over another property because we thought it was an actual house with stairs inside and that we would all be together. This would have been nice to know beforehand yet it is not advertised as such on VRBO. The layout of the house is 2 bedrooms and 2 bathrooms upstairs with a full kitchen, living room and dining room. Downstairs (again only accessible by outside stairs) was 1 bedroom with a living area which has 2 twin beds and a futon and one bathroom which is inside the bedroom. If you are looking to share this space, the people sleeping in the living area will have to walk through the bedroom to get to the bathroom. I am not sure what anyone else thinks about this but personally I would prefer not to do chores while on vacation. If having to do chores per rental agreements, it would have also been nice if laundry detergent and dish liquid soap would have been provided since we were required to wash our dishes and towels. Please note: this is the only place I have ever stayed where they asked us to wash the towels. The fact that dish liquid and laundry detergent were not provided, made me seriously question if anything was actually clean. The worst part of all of this was dealing with Marty at First Choice Florida Vacation Rentals. After expressing our problems and hoping for a proactive resolution, we were offered a bribe of $200 and had to agree to not write a negative review. This makes me curious how many untold stories are out there due to this practice. All I was looking for when speaking about our experiences was a sincere apology and some plan of action from First Choice Florida Vacation Rentals so I knew that they took our complaints seriously, instead they did not address anything and attempted to sweep it all under the rug. The response we got made me feel that this company does not care about the safety of their renters and are only looking to make a quick buck and get out of it as cheaply as possible. To make this a completely honest review, not all was bad. The beach was beautiful and only a 10 minute walk away and the house is only about a 20 minute drive to downtown Saint Augustine.