The house

I rented a house from a place called Florida Spirit Vacation Homes. We looked at a lot of houses. We chose this one because it was big and had a heated pool. Well, it was big. There was enough space that we weren't on top of one another. Char and Art got the short end of it because they slept on a reclining couch. Not real comfortable. No one was too fond of the mattresses. The kitchen was good. Open and had a dishwasher, coffee pot and all the essentials.

We were close to the grocery store. Alika found this huge avocado.

Sean looks like he is telling a joke. Did you hear the one about.....?
This is the two hours that the hot tub was hot

David briefly got in the unheated pool and promptly froze his butt off. We were impressed with his determination.

There was a crooked pool table, a ping pong table and air hockey in the garage. Sean really liked the air hockey. Art a connoisseur of pool said the table sucked.

There were some cool cranes that wandered around the neighborhood. Sean kept trying to sneak up on them.

One of them ate bread out of Alika's hand. Loreal got a picture of them eating huge grubs they picked out the ground.

Our love of the house went to crap when we are at the Kennedy Space Center and the house was being flooded with carbon monoxide.

The house was all good until the tried to poison us with carbon monoxide. Here's the letter David left in the book at the house. They never contacted us or refunded our money.

Here's the letter I've posted on review sites.

We thought our vacation rental company was just disappointing until they tried to kill us then we knew they were truly hideous!

The pool was not heated as per contract. When we called the day we arrived they said it would hopefully be repaired on Tuesday. (We were scheduled to leave Thursday at 3 a.m.) The heater in the pool was repaired sometime on Monday. On Tuesday we left the house for the day except for our 20 year old son. He was at home alone when the carbon monoxide detector started to beep. He read on the detector that one beep was a low battery and four beeps was carbon monoxide detection. He called his dad who told him to call Florida Spirit. Someone from Florida Spirit came out and put new batteries in the carbon monoxide detector and left. The detector kept going off. David called Florida Spirit again. He was told if the detector kept going off to take the batteries out and throw it in a drawer. WHAT?!! He told them he wasn't going to do that and there was a problem. Florida Spirit Vacation Homes representatives told David they never had carbon monoxide problems at their homes, in fact carbon monoxide was impossible. They accused him of smoking in the house. WHAT?!! David got mad at the Florida Spirit Vacation Home's receptionist and words were exchanged.  A few minutes later David got a call on the land line from Florida Spirit Vacation Home's owner. She was not calling to apologize but rather to demand an apology from David for yelling at the receptionist.

At this point David did what any reasonable person would do when they think they are in a home filled with deadly gas. He got out and he called 911. Fortunately, the fire department did not concede with Florida Spirit Vacation Home's amelioration plan. The fire department identified the house was indeed being flooded with carbon monoxide from the pool heater that is located next to the house. After the fireman in charge of the scene called Florida Spirit Vacation Homes they acknowledged there was validity to David's concerns. The fire department also encouraged any of us experiencing headaches or nausea to go to the emergency department immediately. If David had listened to Florida Spirit Vacation Home's and thrown the carbon monoxide detector in the drawer before we went to bed we would all be dead! 

I called Florida Spirit Vacation Home's on the 30th to speak with the owner who was unavailable. She was certainly available the day of the carbon monoxide poisoning when she was yelling at my son. It's been five days and we still haven't had a call from Florida Spirit Vacation Home's. I spoke with Brian who I believe is their maintenance manager. Brian was very placating and said we would be receiving a full refund. He didn't say when or how just that we would.

There are signs all over the house explaining how Florida Spirit Vacation Home's checks the house before the guest arrival to make sure everything is in working order. I call bull on that. If they had checked before we arrived we would have had a functioning pool, light bulbs and remotes with batteries.

I would NEVER recommend Florida Spirit Vacation Home's. They tried to poison us with carbon monoxide and then basically called my son an idiot and a liar. After nearly killing us no one has called to apologize. The only communication has been David and me calling them.

Our experience with Florida Spirit Vacation Home's has been terrifying. I am thankful we are still alive. None of us slept well last night wondering if we were being poisoned. Did Florida Spirit Vacation Home's remove the carbon monoxide detectors after the fire department left? We have no faith in the company. We won't sleep well tonight either. We can't get out of here fast enough. This has been a truly crappy experience!

Preface: We searched a lot of homes before we chose this home. I read reviews. Unfortunately now I see that the only reviews published on Florida Spirit Vacation Homes website are positive. This means they do not allow any negative reviews on their website. They took my daughters review off their Facebook page reporting it as malicious.

Days before they tried to kill us I made a list of petty complaints about our vacation home in Davenport Florida (Wilder Villa 600 Tupelo Circle) managed by Florida Spirit.

 There were no batteries in the clock. I replaced the batteries only to find the clock just doesn't work.

No batteries in the channel changers. We had to purchase batteries for all the channel changers.

Missing light bulbs from lamps and overhead fixtures. We didn't buy light bulbs but moved light bulbs around to the most needed locations.

The pool was supposed to be heated. It was not heated. We called early after our arrival on Friday December 26, 2014 and told them the pool was not heating and they said they would fix it by 5. I called back around 3 and they said they would try to fix it by Tuesday. We were scheduled to leave on Thursday at 4 am which means we might have a pool for one day of our vacation. I asked Florida Spirit for a new house they said because it was the Holiday season they didn't have any.

On the positive: The house was large and fairly clean. When I turned on the  jetted tub hair balls did shoot out but in the scheme of things that is petty.

Let’s get back to the pool. The pool was really important in our choice of homes. We spent days looking at homes and contacting rental agencies. We would not have chosen a home without a heated pool. We had shown the kids pictures of the pool and talked about how we were going to spend our first day in Florida lounging around our heated pool. OK, no pool. The company stinks we came to terms with their total lack of customer service early on. They said they were attempting to work with numerous vendors to get the pool fixed.