If you want to know why we left after 16 hours - losing our entire payment - continue reading.....
While there we discovered -
1. Hair in the drain of the upstairs bathroom left from the previous guests
2. The provided hair dryer was sticky on the outside and had plenty of hair on the inside
3. The mattress cover for the baby crib was very obviously old, heavily used & seemed stained
4. The mattresses in the 2 bedrooms we used were very old & uncomfortable with the beds as old as the house.
5. The sheets on the bed my wife & I used were noisy when we moved in bed.
6. The house felt dark, old and cold
7. The furniture downstairs had 'a lot of room for improvement' with the comfort and was 'well aged'
8. Although a very nice beach is only a 15 min walk away, everything else (restaurants, bars, stores, etc) is not within walking distance and there is nothing in the area of the house except other houses, plus the nearby town is pretty run-down.
In summary, the price paid was overly ambitious considering the state of the house. And upon writing an email of explanation to the owner (on the Homelidays platform), we received zero response, not even an apology for the dirtiness of the house, only our security deposit back a few days after the rental period end.
Good points
1. Owner was very diligent about communicating pre-arrival
2. The pictures of the backyard on this website are great and pretty representative
So - if you want a place close to the beach, go for it. If you care about cleanliness, location convenience, etc., as we do, keep looking.