BEWARE OF THE BUNGALOWS UNIT #148 AND DENNIS STARK OF ITRIP
IF YOU HAVE HAD A BAD EXPERIENCE IN BUNGALOWS UNIT #148, PLEASE SHARE IN COMMENT BOX BELOW.
My family and I rented The Bungalows Unit #148 from Dennis Stark of iTrip for a week at the beach in early June 2014. We paid $1350 for the week. It turned out to be a mistake. We paid too much to be too far from the beach in what turned out to be a much tinier space than the photos would have you believe.
On top of that, the manager, Dennis Stark of iTrip, decided (without telling us first) to charge our AmEx card an additional $1000 for a table he claimed was broken but then couldn’t produce photos or even tell us which of the tables was broken! He also decided to keep our $250 deposit, all without any prior warning or notification. The only rational offered was that the cleaning crew had to spend too long cleaning the unit.
Before I get to the extortion, let it be said that there are better places to stay on the Florida Gulf Coast than The Bungalows. Google map the complex and note how far the units are from the beach. Yes, that’s a solid quarter mile of burning asphalt. Also note in the satellite picture the long boardwalk from 30A to the beach and realize that this death march ends in a massive three-story staircase.
The Tom Thumb gas station on the corner is a hangout for contractors and their trucks, commuters and traffic, not to mention some shady characters and drunks. It is a dangerous 3-way intersection with no stop sign and zero parking for either a car or the plastic red wagon you get when you rent at The Bungalows Unit 148. Crossing 30A is a daily nightmare.
The unit itself was small but tolerable, with a decent refrigerator and working AC. However, the electric stove was a cheap model with a dysfunctional vent and there was little in the way of silverware or cups. With four people and one toddler staying in the house, we were living on top of one another. When my wife's cousin, her husband and baby came to stay for one day, one could not even reach the staircase because of the cheap pull-out sofa bed.
The grill was a nice four-burner model, but it hadn’t been cleaned when we arrived and they left us only half a tank of gas and an empty refill (I had to borrow a tank from a friendly neighbor to finish grilling dinner one night). Four light bulbs were out and the deck upstairs isn’t even wide enough for two people to pass. The huge dining nook chairs made maneuvering in the kitchen impossible when anyone was seated; the bikes were old, squeaky and badly rusted and the beach toys were obviously due to be retired. There was also very little storage in either bedroom.
All in all, the amenities were there, but nothing noteworthy. The whole place, from its construction to its amenities just smacked of the kind of ‘get the money and run’ attitude of the years preceding the housing crash. No thought, no design, just fresh paint, bad mortgages and lost savings. That’s what this unit makes you think of, and that poverty of ethics persists in the person of management company iTrip and their representative, Dennis Stark, who used the contract to massage a few HUNDRED extra bucks out of us after we were far away in Atlanta.
The tiny pool in front of the unit is a nice touch, but the child-proof locks on the gates make coming to and from the unit a pain, and there is no path around the pool. What’s more, you’re right on top of the neighboring units, so there is very little privacy. The first night there I could hear the TV blaring in the unit next to ours.
The 4pm check-in and 10am check-out times are both very inconvenient, but particularly the early check-out. What’s worse, the cleaning crew arrived an hour early and pressured us to leave faster. And then there was the email from the manager complaining that we didn’t leave the unit neat and clean enough. How could we? With two toddlers and a weeks worth of food in the kitchen, it was all we could do to get out by 10am. So went our $250 deposit...
When I arrived home to Atlanta, the manager of The Bungalows Unit #148 wrote to inform me that a table had been broken and he had gone ahead and charged my credit card for $1000 to join the $250 already in captivity, as this was obviously my fault. He didn’t say which table or send any photos or otherwise offer me any proof. He just said that once a new table could be found, he’d let me know. Nice.
I immediately smelled a scam. Why not let me know first, show me evidence and work out a deal? What’s with the hair trigger on the credit card? It was all very shady, and I complained to Dennis Stark about it. It took three days for him to send me back photos and his story changed from one table to two!
Both tables were glass, the most expensive repair being the ‘heat-damaged’ dining room table. What kind of lame excuse is that? 'Heat damaged?' Are you kidding me? First of all, we never put anything hotter than a plate of pancakes on that table, and second of all IT’S A KITCHEN TABLE. What did he expect?
In response to my complaints and the case I opened with AmEx, Dennis Stark credited $615 back to my card, but I am still fighting him through American Express for the rest of the money because my family and I didn’t earn any of those charges.
Based on our experience, and I am just guessing here, but I think this is part of a business plan: Make something up that’s covered in the contract, over-charge the client, ‘exasperate and negotiate’ for half of the money to shut up the client, and then pocket a tidy profit. This allows iTrip to keep rental fees low and make up the difference.
So please be very careful dealing with Dennis Stark and iTrip and their poor business practices, and please don't stay at The Bungalows #148. Their contracts are a trap. If you want to avoid headaches, rent with someone besides Dennis Stark and iTrip.
The worse part of this whole thing is that I wasn’t planning on writing this review. Despite the mediocre accommodations, my family had a pretty good week. There was no need to warn away others until the owner decided to try and rob me. Now I feel compelled to let other people know about my experience and the poor customer service at The Bungalows Unit #148.
If you are looking for a vacation rental on the Gulf Coast, do yourself a favor and look somewhere besides The Bungalows Unit #148. There are a lot of fish in the sea, so to speak. Besides the poor location and mediocre amenities at The Bungalows Unit #148, management is obviously not on your side. Skip these units entirely and rent somewhere else.
