Prairie Comfort Your Peaceful, Private & Affordable Retreat

We had a comfortable stay at this home. The beds were cozy, and the host was very responsive and friendly throughout the process. The house served its purpose for our trip, but it’s clear that the property has seen some use. A few maintenance issues stood out: one of the upstairs lamps was missing a knob and couldn’t be turned on, and the largest burner on the stove wasn’t working, which made cooking a bit less convenient. Overall, it was a functional space and met our needs, but a few updates would go a long way in improving the guest experience.

Pictures and immediate reaction is “nicely decorated”. Didn’t take long to see how dirty, inconvenient, poorly equipped, poorly maintained and disappointing it was. I Clorox cleaned literally EVERYTHING we used before using it. Being late in the day, we stayed (clean, comfortable beds are the primary reason for the 1 star given). Instead of 3 nights we booked, we left the next morning after only one night. It was just not worth staying. I conveyed all of this to the owner the morning we left. Long explanations/excuses are not solving the basic problems of this place. Very disappointed that my view of the town is colored by this experience.

We had a pleasant time staying here

The images of the property looked pretty good, so we were a little disappointed to see a lot of shotty work in the house. We were not expecting brand new, but it looked like a lot of the updates that were done were very quick fixes - not well done. Another bummer was that the shower head was extremely short, so all of us had to squat when washing out hair. Another thing that really did concern us was the iciness by the entrance. One of us fell on our way out because it was so slippery. It would have been nice to have a little salt down to help with that. We did love the proximity to downtown. The lyft ride their was minutes and very cheap! Not a bad place, just not very nice either.

Initially I was given the wrong key code, and couldn’t get into the property. After entering the property I noticed there was a sign on the washer that stated out of order. One of the main reasons I booked the property was to be close to campus and have a way to wash my laundry. The internet was very spotty also. Unfortunately these were not the only issues I had to deal with. The first night of staying in the property at around 1:30 AM someone was beating on my bedroom window. After the beating stopped I checked to ensure the window was locked. This is when I found out the window lock was broken. I reached out to the owner AGAIN and was initially told that the weather must have effected the windows locking capabilities. I explained that the window lock itself was broken and had nothing to do with the weather. At this point due to the numerous issues with the property and not feeling safe (what a coincidence that the only window being beat on in the property is the only one with the broke lock?!) I vacated the property and asked for a refund. Mind you home away was also paid a fee upon me booking the property to guarantee my safety. After a four day battle with the property owner and home away I had to re-book another place to stay and was not refunded any of my initial rate on-top of the owner refusing to check me out early so I could at least get some of my money back. I was basically informed that at the end of the day my refund was at the discrepancy of the property owner and he refused to refund me unless the property was re-booked. The property couldn’t be re-booked because again the owner refused to mark me as being “checked out early”. I called Home Away for assistance and was told again the early check out was at the discretion of the property owner and that had to be completed by the property owner. So essentially there was no way I was getting my money back even though I only stayed one night out of 14 days booked. The property was not safe, horrible internet service and was not as described. Couple this with the lack of service from Home Away (as a guest you really have no protection at all) and this was the worst experience of my life.

Communication was clear and easy when booking this rental property. It was very clean and spacious and I made the right decision choosing this VRBO rental over a hotel for my short visit. I would recommend this property and would stay again.