Mango 8

When we arrived at New Cambium in our arranged airport ride, we were taken directly to our selected rental, Mango 8. The driver, Harry, works extensively with the guests and residents of the community and he is trusted with the keys received at the gatehouse. Everything looked and seemed as depicted by the website. But the issues started right with the front door that would barely open wide enough to squeeze ourselves and luggage in. The beautiful wooden door jammed tight into the tiled floor, the further you bodied it open, the tighter it got. We didn't really think much of it as we were rather exhausted from the spending the day travelling from Canada to the DR. This was not a new issue as the tile floor was quite damaged over time from others shoving the door open. We were told its because of the humidity... umm... its always humid in the DR. In hindsight, its hard to fathom ignoring such an easy repair by simply planing down the bottom edge of a wooden door over damaging the finish of a tiled floor. Not our property, not our problem.

The second thing we noticed was how stale the air was inside. This house had been closed up and unused for quite some time. We proceeded to open the patio doors and a few windows. Not unlike our own cottage which mostly sits idle in winter.

At this point, we are relieved to be at our destination, we have some unpacking to do, groceries to put away... basically set up camp for a week. We noticed the fridge was not cold at all. The electrical system (solar) had just been turned on and with it the fridge so that takes some time to cool down. We loaded everything into the fridge, $350 US of fresh and frozen food that we purchased between the airport and New Cambium. Time to relax and have a drink... its been a long day.

After a few hours and a couple of drinks, we decided that it was time to make ourselves some dinner. Being a rental and not knowing how clean the dishes and utensils are, we decided to wash up a few plates, silverware, utensils etc. But we discover theres no plug for the sinks to be found anywhere... we searched all the cupboards and drawers and came up empty. Its a problem, not a big one, but still a bit odd and brought into question the cleanliness of the entire kitchen and everything in it. Being problem solvers, we used a piece of a plastic grocery bag and it worked well enough to hold water in the sink.

Next problem? the fridge. Its humming, food and drinks are cool (ish) but not cool enough. The frozen food in the freezer is beginning to thaw and everything else is basically warm at this point. We are not sure what to think at this point but we keep the faith that the fridge will catch up.

We chose to fry up some sausages on the stove top. We believe its quite common to hang a tea towel on the oven door handle. Melissa did just that and immediately the entire plastic handle fell off and hit the floor. Clearly, it had been broken off in the past, but someone graciously staged it ever so carefully in place to give the appearance of not being damaged. Further to that, because the handle could not be used to open the oven, we realized the control valve (propane) had been removed so you couldn't use the oven at all. That made zero sense to us. Disable the oven rather than replace the handle.  Thats like never driving your car at night because your headlights are burnt out. Don't replace the bulbs, just remove the switch... problem solved? Lightbulbs aren't burnt out if you can't turn them on in the first place right?

Its at this point we both realise, things really are not right with this rental. Small basic things are wrong, that shouldn't be, but really make life smoother.  So now we pull out the fine tooth comb and the list keeps growing. Windows that are difficult to open, screens are falling out, not in place. Food crumbs on the chairs and table in the kitchen, all the patio furniture is stuffed inside. The supplied propane bbq is so rusted we wouldn't let a dog eat off it. Pillow cases with sweat stains. We discovered the water system had sat unsused for an extended period of time, idle long enough for the water in the pipes to come out rusty/iron coloured. Not a big deal, but just further cements how unused the property was.

It became very apparent this place has been rode hard and put away wet and should have NEVER been available for rent.

But this chapter doesn't end yet. We ventured off to bed at 9:45 p.m., I woke up at 1:00 a.m. and my CPAP machine wasn't working (without it I snore) because the power (solar) system batteries had gone dead at 10:20 it seems. So now, on top of having no lights to navigate a strange home in the dark and no power supply to my cpap for a good nights sleep... no power also means no fridge running. Things have really bottomed out on Day 1.

As mentioned in 'About Us' we have a cottage that is completely off grid just like this rental house. Propane hot water and stove and solar panels and batteries for electricity for everything else. In the morning, I ventured downstairs to look at the system in the house. The exact same charge controllers and much to my surprise there was only 4 lead acid batteries to store power. Our cottage system has 8 and we have no issues with having enough power. I examined the water levels in a few of the battery cells and they were not equally full. There was water sitting on top of the batteries suggesting someone had very recently added water. I do not know the age of the solar panels or the batteries, but we do know they need regular attention (water top up) at least once a month. But clearly, the condition of the system was not good. The fridge trying to cool down killed the batteries in just a few hours after dark. Like the oven, we don't know if the fridge actually worked because the power went off. The system is woefully inadequate for that home. If everyday is sunny enough you might get by but just getting by isn't good enough. 

We demanded to be moved to another house. We cannot stay anywhere if food cannot be kept from spoiling.

Unfortunately, we did not document this rental with photos because its generally not something people do while on vacation.

Palm Gardens 8

Day 2 we moved to Palm Gardens 8 (PG8). We were forced to throw out all out our meat and some produce as it was no longer safe or edible. When we arrived we unpacked whatever food we had remaining into the fridge. Like the previous rental, it had been just turned on and not very cold... but it was humming.  I asked if there would be any compensation for our spoiled food. We were offered a 'free' taxi ride to the grocery store over 1 hr away. So far our vacation time is being spent trying to survive. No compensation for food or even the 3 hrs we were forced to spend travelling to the grocery store.  We had no other choice but to invest another 3 hrs and $300 just to restart our vacation.

After returning, we loaded all the food into the fridge and finally started to relax.... or so we thought. A few drinks, feet up... time to repeat the process of cleaning a few dishes etc. and begin prepping for dinner. Lo and behold, it was a complete repeat of Mango 8.... no drain plug for the sink to be found anywhere !! WHY ?? Immediately contact Dio and we received a sink plug 2 hrs later and good thing... because everything was filthy. Plates, glasses, utensils... we trusted nothing and are forced to clean everything.

Its hard to keep the bad things that happened in order, but when we began cleaning we soon discovered the hot water had stopped working.  Another repair call sent out and we went without hot water until the next afternoon. Meanwhile, we discovered that the fridge was running but not cooling anymore. Now we're angry because our newly purchased replacement food is getting warmer. Another house, another fridge that doesn't work. Awesome.

A new replacement fridge was brought down from another unoccupied house and it worked. Problem solved? Is this sounding like a great vacation yet? 

The website mentions that each house comes with a large jug of drinking wate, this one did not.  Its really hard to exist without safe drinking water but between the water we purchased at the grocery store and the water cooler at the communal pool we had just enough.

Later that evening, Melissa was in the bathroom and I hear her exclaim 'Oh My God'... I naturally asked whats wrong and she said 'The toilet is broken.' Talk about mentally bottoming out. 

The final straw. Day 3, the hot water quit... again.  We contacted Diogenes (the wannabe maintenance guy) again to inform him that it was not working.  Some repair guy showed up a few hours later and did something to make it work again. Very shortly after that Melissa received a voice message via WhatsApp from Diogenes accusing us of tampering with the hot water.  It was OUR fault. Now we're FURIOUS!! 

We will attempt to upload the voice message to this page soon.

Their logic is... we went on vacation where many things were wrong and what was promised wasn't received and when it was repaired we chose to break so that we wouldn't enjoy ourselves at all. That is what we usually do on vacation. Spend thousands on airfare just to get there and sabotage our paid accomodations because we don't want to have a good time. We have never been so insulted by anyone in our lives.

We packed up and left on Day 4. Gave all our remaining groceries to the nice retired man staying next door and we headed to a 5 star, all inclusive resort in Puerto Plata. 3 days left to salvage our vacation.