the location of this house is awesome -- steps to the ocean, short walk to convenience stores and restaurants, great view of the water. there are some things about it that i wish had been clearer, though. it's hard to tell from the pictures how small the house truly is, and that the one bathroom is in the room that has the bunk bed. the lofted area is also in that same room, and the room with the queen size bed is off of that so if you have to use the bathroom in the night, you run the risk of waking whoever is in the bunk bed/loft. there are 2 parking spots out front but theyre really tight. We had to pull the car out and park on the side of the road to get our 2 kids in and out of their car seats. that's all not so bad and easy to remedy if you're not bringing kids or they're good sleepers/older. However, there were some other issues with the upkeep of the house that would stop me from coming back, even without my kids. First, there was broken glass on the floor when we got there and my husband cut his foot. that had us stressed about how well the house was cleaned between rentals. The queen sized bed also had a sheet on it (you must bring your own linens and towels so i assume the people who rented it before us left it?) that was covered in sand and someone else's hair, so clearly hadn't been cleaned between people. that queen-sized bed also doesn't fit in the bed frame, so the foot of the mattress rests on top of the footboard and makes it so when you're asleep your head is lower than your feet. we just ended up sleeping with our heads on the wrong end (if you've ever slept on an uneven floor or a mattress pitched the wrong way you know that you feel pretty junky when you wake up, and that's no way to spend your vacation). I was planning to email the owners about the glass and the hair, but then we had a big rainstorm and the skylight in the kitchen started leaking. So I messaged Tami to let her know and she said she'd come by to check it out. I figured I'd just speak to her about the other issues in person, but no one ever came by. I got a message later that night saying sorry for not making it over and that they were scheduled to have the roof done, so she already knew it was an issue. You really can't beat the location but i've stayed in many rentals in tons of different areas of Plum Island over the last 20 years; there are better houses for the price, even if they're farther from the beach.
