I will also preface this to say, I've never written a bad review of a place we've stayed on the Cape. Ever.
We drove the 5 hours from NJ and arrived to a lovely Brewster home in a town we know and love. Upon entering the home, I was overwhelmed with the smell of cigarette smoke. My husband is asthmatic, so this was an immediate concern. There's no AC in the main area of the home, so I thought that maybe it was just stale, or that maybe people had smoked outside and it had come through the windows. We turned the ACs on in the bedrooms and opened the windows and hoped for the best, and honestly, was just happy to be in my happy place.
I walked around and noticed that the home was not as advertised. It clearly showed wear and tear since the reviews I'd read and the photos posted. The home, like every other place we've stayed on the Cape, was clearly not professionally cleaned. The counters were sticky, and the cigarette smoke failed to dissipate. The cleanliness was an obvious concern due to COVID. The owner confirmed that she had cleaned it herself and claimed that no one had ever smoked in the home.
I noticed that there were no sheets or towels in the home. The pillows in the main bedroom were old and yellowed. Again, the smell of cigarettes was overwhelming. I emailed the owner, and she informed me that there were no sheets or towels included with the listing. I spent the next 4 hours of my vacation in TJ MAXX, buying linens, bath towels, beach towels painstakingly washing them in the tiny washer/dryer, and putting them on the beds with top linens that were undoubtably not cleaned recently. Every single Cape home we've stayed in has been professionally cleaned and felt so good to enter. This home felt like a slap in the face.
I honestly cried. We work so hard all year, and paid over $500 a day for this rental, and I knew that I wouldn't be happy here. I called the owner and she insisted that no one had ever smoked here. Um, ok. The screen door on the front of the house was almost falling off. I asked the owner if she knew the screen door was broken and she said some previous kids had broken it. Ok, fine.
My husband and I could not sleep in the main bedroom. I bought candles for every room, opened every window. The smoke smell would not dissipate. We ended up sleeping on the two twin beds in one of the other bedrooms.
For the most part we enjoyed our stay - despite the smell. The cottage, although rough around the edges, was ok. The kitchen had everything we needed, the front garden was lovely, the living room was a nice place to hang out (very basic cable - but who comes to the Cape to watch TV). I was looking forward to the outdoor shower, but it was frightening and I wouldn't have dared use it.
At the end of it all - while this wasn't our best stay ever, we made lovely memories for our family. We decided to leave early on Friday morning. We've never left a rental so early before. I told the owner we had left, and thanked her for our stay. She told me next time I shouldn't assume places had sheets. Haha! Ok. I told her that she might want to put it in her listing, just to avoid confusion. She said she couldn't, which is just laughable. Of course you can! Just add it to the description! Anyway. Overall, I was shocked at this person's attitude. Never once did she apologize for the inconvenience of having to spend the first hours of my vacation shopping for and washing linens, which I would have been happy to bring had I known. The owner offered to reimburse me for the sheets, which was great, but at the end of it all, she asked me where the sheets and towels were that I bought, because surely I could not expect her to pay for them if I hadn't left them. This was laughable! I took the offer of reimbursement as a show of good faith and an act of apology for my inconvenience. At no point did I think I would be leaving my nice sheets that I had just purchased.