This review is for the McColl House, as advertised here on the Pera's Cottages website:
http://www.perascottages.com/
The address is 5007 C. Mapleton Beach, Geneva-on-the-Lake, OH. The phone number associated with this rental property is (440) 466-8011.
We stayed at McColl House in July 2011 and paid $830 for the rental.
Other relevant links:
Tripadvisor & Yelp for Pera's Motel (same owner, no review page exists for the cottages):
http://www.tripadvisor.com.my/Hotel_Review-g50370-d620586-Reviews-Pera_s_Motel_Apartments-Geneva_on_the_Lake_Ohio.html
http://www.yelp.com/biz/peras-motel-apartments-geneva#hrid:MhuWrUnKg02EzTo3o6PKzw
I am an independent consumer and the review below is solely the opinion of the author. I have made every attempt to describe the condition as accurately as possible, substantiated by photographs, however make no sweeping claim that the statements below are not littered with some subjectiveness and opinion. My goals in writing this review are 1) to prevent any unsuspecting family or couple from going through what we went through, and 2) to somehow incite the owner to clean up their act and perhaps make things right with me, an unhappy consumer.
I preface my review with three points:
1. My husband and I have been visiting Geneva-on-the-Lake, Ohio for several years. We like the laid-back lakeside atmosphere and enjoy trips to the state park where we can lounge on the beach and go boating out of the marina. At night there is a casual street atmosphere on the strip, and most all food and drink is incredibly affordable. After our vacation up there this summer, we were left with such a bad taste (wholly due to the McColl House) that we have sworn off ever staying on the strip again. After some research, I have found that the same family who owns the McColl House and Pera's Motel own just about every business in Geneva-on-the-Lake. For example, Firehouse, Swiss Chalet, Adventure Zone, Woody's, Lake Worth House...the old amusement park property...
My desire to go spend hard-earned money in "their town" is has gone to nil after this vacation.
2. Two weeks after our vacation stay, I contacted the phone number associated with the rental property and talked to Marty. I explained that I was very displeased with the stay and felt misled about the property both on the website and on the phone, and I felt that my husband and I deserved some or all of our money back. I explained to her that I intended to write a review on websites such as tripadvisor.com and yelp.com, but thought it was only fair to express my complaints to the owner/operator first and give them a chance to respond. She took notes as I went through several but not all of the issues, and explained to me that she would relay these concerns to the owner and I would receive a callback. Well, it is September and I have not been contacted by the owner of the property. To be truthful, I was so upset about the experience that I have tried to forget it and delay following through with my review. Hence, it is September and I am just now getting around to posting the photos of the place on the internet.
3. There ARE nice places to stay in Geneva-on-the-Lake, Ohio. And for a comparable price. I will write a review of one of the Laurello properties up there that is just lovely, and about the same price for one week. Refer to VRBO Listing #272485.
OUTSIDE/SURRONDING AREA
McColl House has one and only one thing going for it - location. The location is great, sitting proud on the strip right across from Mike's Gyro and newly renovated Sportserz Bar & Grill. It sits on the end of Mapleton Beach Lane, which dead-ends into Lake Erie and has a nice deck/seating area with spectacular views. There is a swimming area, open to all renters/owners of the houses on the lane. While the "beach" is not much, it does the trick and several families were enjoying the area just a short walk from their rentals.
And there it ends, the positives. Here are some pictures of the outside of the McColl House, a view looking across the street, and a view looking down the lane. Looks cute, right?
When you arrive, you must stop at Woody's World arcade to get the key from Marty. We ventured over, excited to get our stuff dropped off and head to the lake. The office there was a mess, had a foul smell, and just generally unkempt for a place of business. Should have been a warning sign. Marty seemed nice and helpful though. It was explained about the property that basically "anything goes". Again, should have been another warning sign about the types of folks they might rent to.
Back door - the only one that really "locks".
Previous renters' garbage - this sat there for about two days before the trash men came. By the end of the week we learned Geneva-on-the-Lake has a little skunk problem. They run amuck everywhere. My dad discovered later in the week a litter of four skunk "pups" had taken a liking to the back door trash after dark. Yes, I mean we had four baby skunks hanging out outside the back door of the house. Luckily a stray cat also hung around, and when she was there it seemed to keep the skunks away. When I mentioned this to Marty on the phone after the fact, she said I should have let them know as they have a trapper guy who takes care of them. But the situation I was in was that there was no one thing that was going to make this mess of a house and the rest of my vacation "okay", so we tried to make the best of it and not think about it. For obvious reasons, I do not have any photos of the baby skunks at night.
When we entered the back porch door, the cleaning supplies were in plain view. We would soon find out that they apparently have never been used.
This switch plate cover in the back entry porch pretty much sums up the house: Everything is broken and/or needs repair and/or is a safety hazard. Keep in mind, families with small children vacation here all summer.
Our vacation was tricky to plan and involved two large groups of people - our 20-something friends (couples) for the first half of the week, and my family (parents/brother/aunts/uncles/cousins) ranging from 20 to 50+ years of age. We are middle class suburbs folks, not poor not rich; our houses are clean but not fussy. We have a favorite family to rent from up in Geneva area - the Laurello's - but their place on the strip was booked for the week we needed.KITCHEN
Here is what I found in the kitchen. Bear-in-mind, my folks were bringing food up mid-week to grill out, and I was disturbed to see an ant trail running clear across the counter top. We had to pickup some ant spray in Geneva (10 min. away) and that held them off somewhat for the week. I don't have any photos of the ants to prove it, because they were dead by the time I decided I should take pictures of this place. But they were there, witnessed by my husband as well.
We were told when we booked the place that it had a coffee maker. We searched far and wide for a coffee maker when we arrived. We even called Marty again, once up there, to inquire - she said "Oh, no, you have to bring that up there with you." Later in the week, I was digging around in the bottom cabinets and found this one. I washed out the pitcher thinking we would use it, but when I opened to top to pour water in, I changed my mind (it was disgusting). We bought our coffee each morning at Masden Doughnuts instead.
Surprisingly, the stove/oven worked.
The fridge worked too. The owners had some fetish for this shelf-liner material. It was everywhere. It was on every flat surface. I think they thought it gave the perception of cleanliness. I pulled most all of it up and used the bleach spray on the flat surfaces. The other strange thing was the plastic purple shower curtain cutouts that lined every surface in the bathrooms. More on that later.
Who wants an ice tray from under the sink? Note, there's my bug spray I bought.
Some of the cupboards did not close. The owner was a fan of duct tape for the purpose of closing the cupboards.
A view looking into the kitchen from the back porch. I don't have a full-length view of the counters unfortunately.
The toaster circa 1988, want to have some bagels? From memory, it didn't work. In fact, by the photo I am reminded that someone had reworked the wiring to attach the yellow plug to it (see below). It is pretty sad given you can buy a new one at Walmart for $10-20 dollars. Again, Masden Doughnuts across the street is the safer choice. The microwave was on top this table in the kitchen. It had a two-prong to three-prong outlet adapter. I plugged it in once but doubted it was safe because the plug started heating up. As a disclaimer, my husband and I are both engineers, we understand how stuff works and what makes things safe when dealing with electricity. None of the contacts in any of the outlets in the house were in safe operating condition, i.e. plug overheat or Ohm's Law: V=IR.
Seeing a trend here? Broken paper towel holder.
This checkered tile is throughout the ENTIRE HOUSE. It is also in the Swiss Chalet bar down the street. It is starting to break apart in places. It was not clean when we arrived. I called our friends and family and warned them to bring "house flip-flops".
DOWNSTAIRS BATHROOM
Here is the purple plastic stuff I mentioned. Once we went upstairs, we realized these were bits of the shower curtain that were cut up to cover various flat surfaces. My theory here is that the owners got tired of having to clean pee or vomit off the back of the toilet, so they use plastic. I told Marty this on a conversation I had with her weeks later. I told her this place obviously had one purpose: a "drinking house", to which she insisted "Oh, no, we only rent to families!" Now don't get me wrong, we did our share of drinking and fun, but it was definitely not a place I would want my small child running around unsupervised in. My dad described the place as one of those old biker squat houses from the '70's.
Do you suspect any families use this tub for their children? Maybe, but no responsible parent would. It only took a little bit of street-smarts to suspect this tub has been used both as a urinal and a vomit receptacle. The "curtains" throughout the entire house were made from fabric from the mid part of the century. They were discolored and hadn't been washed in years, decades I suspect. Maybe never.
Fuse box above the toilet. I suppose it is out-of-reach of small children standing on the toilet seat. However it concerns me that main line (or maybe it is a distribution box) for the house comes into a bathroom and is not in a locked cabinet. This seems like a big liability for the owners. But something tells me they just don't care. I also highly doubt any of the wiring in the two bathrooms was GFI protected.
Sink was coming away from the wall. None of the faucets in the house shut off completely. It was a big waste of water. I bleached and scrubbed the sink before my guests arrived. My husband and I booked the house for the group, so I was embarrassed to say-the-least for my family and friends to arrive.
Hole in the wall of the downstairs bathroom tile. My dad put some TP in there in case a mouse lived there. More of a comfort thing than actually preventative measure.
LIVING ROOM
There was a rug rolled up behind a really gross chair. We didn't touch it for fear of what was in it.
This yellow green chair epitomizes the furniture in the place. Curb furniture. Not even a "free" post on Craigslist would get rid of this stuff (well, maybe it would). And every piece of furniture in the place was not sit-worthy. I watched Big Bang Theory this week, the episode about the red chair, and it reminded me of this place. That chair in that episode was nice though compared to these. The only thing you could sit on were the wood chairs from the dining table, which I also bleached. My mom bleached them too when they arrived, not realizing I had already bleached them. So it wasn't just me uncomfortable in this place, my whole family and all our friends thought it was gross.
There was a gas fireplace in the living room, which once we assessed the overall condition of this place became more of a concern than a perk. That is, do they take care of the house enough to ensure there is no gas leak? Next to the fireplace there was some sawdust from apparent termites? Or a mouse, you pick whatever critter makes you less uneasy to sleep here tonight.
This photo summarizes every window in the house. Broken, no screens, old. We went into this rental knowing there was no A/C. Okay there. It just so happened we were up there during the historic heat wave of Summer 2011. So you can imagine our chagrin realizing there were hardly any screens. And rewind to my previous statement about the baby skunks and stray cats, not to mention it is by the lake and there are bugs. In fact, at breakfast one morning around the table my aunt shrieked, "Oh my God. Don't move. No, it's okay, don't move, oh my God," at my mom. She swiftly and bravely used a paper towel to swat something off my mom's shirt. After the fact we learned that it was a 50-cent-piece-sized spider. We laughed about it later, but arachnaphobics beware. We saw giant spiders in the house three times during the week. Probably because the windows don't close, and it never gets cleaned. Needless to say, when my family arrived with a window A/C unit (I had prepped them by phone calls of what it was like), we didn't care one bit if the utilities for the owners were high by us running the A/C unit downstairs. We left the windows with no screens upstairs open because that was the only way to get a breeze in the bedrooms. It was a horrible experience. And let me say again families with small children beware as this was a hazard with the windows. A small child could easily fall out of the second story windows. Can you tell I am a bit disgruntled about this experience?
Random lamps in the living room. One worked, one did not.
BEDROOMS / SLEEPING ARRANGEMENTS
This is my favorite set of photos. This house is advertised as having: "4 bedrooms (4 double beds, 2 single beds, 2 toddler beds) and two bathrooms and sleeps about 10. It has a full kitchen with microwave, coffeepot, toaster and a gas log fireplace."
In the upstairs bedrooms there are four bedrooms. Two have a double bed and reasonable space.
VENTURING UPSTAIRS
When one goes up the stairs, it is apparent that even the stairs are hazardous. It may not be obvious in this photo, but the flashing on the corners of the steps is coming up and bent in places on the rise of the step. So unless you made a conscious effort you could easily trip, or worse, scalp the top of your toes. Again, I see this as a hazard for families with small children who may come in contact with this sharp edge with their fingers as well as toes.
Another thing about the steps is my husband hit his head on the ceiling here. Not really a biggie, just funny because it was toward the end of the week when we were cursing this house and, coincidentally, leaving early.
This light socket in one of the bedrooms was missing a bulb, undoubtedly because the owners think they will save some electricity. What you need to know is that these are 7 foot ceilings in this house and that socket is live (the other light worked when you flip the switch). Again, hazardous.
There was a smoke alarm upstairs. I did not test it. I can only imagine it did not work, due to inferences from the condition of other items in the house.
Here is a nice shot looking down the upstairs hallway to the shower. The shower was in its own added-on room adjacent to the bathroom with the toilet and sink. It was apparent from the outside that the shower was an afterthought. There was one window, an incandescent bulb, and little else. Surely no GFI. But the water pressure was good and there was hot water.
That there is the shower, or cubbie hole as we came to call it. There was only enough room to barely turn around once you stepped out of the shower. I told my friends around the campfire one night that I bleached the shower bottom and walls, but did not think to bleach the wall once you stepped out. Recalling my own clumsy self getting out of the shower, I raised the point that there must be several butt-prints on that wall from people trying to put on underwear while wearing their shower flip-flops. It brought forth the expected "ewww, disgusting" from the crowd, followed by silence, while we each pondered with the horrible realization that yes, we did indeed tip into that wall naked, and it was highly likely that hundreds of other folks had as well.
The last photos I thought I should include show the outside of the "shower room" add-on. As you can see the plumbing goes straight down the outside of the house. Now, I am no plumber, and I am not a building inspector, but I suspect this is not to code. Sure, maybe they have a variance on it, and yes McColl House is not rented in the winter, but I think it is par-for-the-course for this house and the owners.
BOTTOM LINE
McColl House of Pera's Cottages in Geneva-on-the-Lake, Ohio is a SHITHOLE.
