Critique of My Recent Stay at a Vacation Rental

[Sarah Lorenz]

I booked a rental at a Northern Michigan lake house recently, and now that I'm an expert, I naturally had much to critique. This was a 5 bed, 3 bath house right on the water, and more of a house-hacking STR vs. a professionally run property. We were staying with kids and extended family. Here are little things that annoyed me and would make me look for something else next time:

Decent kitchenware: when you’re renting a house with five bedrooms, you’re bringing a big crowd and you’re cooking at home a lot of the time. This kitchen was pretty well-equipped, but it had cupboards that were crammed packed with old, scratched kitchenware. The entire set of pans was old nonstick cookware that was peeling and chipping. I was gritting my teeth, thinking about the toxins leaching into my kids' food. It was also hard to keep organized. A few labels in the cupboards would’ve been helpful, and please, just simple stainless steel pans. Plus some plastic cups for kids. We managed to break five glasses while we were there. Oh, and a set of storage containers. When you’re cooking for a crowd, you end up with leftovers.

Locks on the bedroom doors: with a house full of extended family and kids wandering around and changing into swimsuits constantly, it's nice to have locks. That actually work. 

Night lights in the hall/bathrooms: when you’re in an unfamiliar house, it’s good to have a nightlight so kids (or adults) can find their way to the bathroom in the middle of the night. We ended up leaving the bathroom lights on all night long, every night. 

Nightstands: most of the bedrooms did not have nightstands. Very annoying to have to use a slippery folding chair to set my book and glasses on.

Dressers in the bedrooms: living out of a suitcase for a week gets old. If you have to choose between a dresser and a king bed, go for the bed, though. Shelves or cube organizers in the closet would be fine, along with some kind of a bench or suitcase stand. Every bedroom should have a big row of hooks, which makes it easier to stay organized with all of these swimsuits, jackets, towels, etc. And every closet should have a laundry basket so you can stay organized with your dirty clothes, especially with kids' clothes thrown everywhere.

King sized mattresses: this house had one king size bed, and three queen size beds, and two twins. The three queens could’ve easily been kings. It is such a punishment to have to sleep in a queen size bed when you’re used to a king. In the future, I will always be searching for a king size bed as one of my criteria.

Clothesline for beach towels: While I did appreciate that there were a ton of beach towels available, there was no place to hang beach towels, so we ended up doing laundry constantly. The kids would just dump them in piles on the deck, so we'd end up just throwing them into the washer. We must’ve done at least an extra 20 loads because of this. We were also using beach towels as bathmats in the bathrooms, because there were dorky thin rag rugs in there that got soaked every time a kid came in from the beach.

Stocked medicine cabinet: bandages and various over the counter medicines were very helpful to have on hand. We also really enjoyed all of the water toys: kayak, stand up paddleboard, inflatable island, etc.

What are the details you've loved or hated in an STR? Or that you've thought about for your guests?