If I'm staying at a friend's house for free, I'm fine with coming to a pitch dark house with no exterior lights, no heat, many burned out lights, an unshoveled walk, a leaking front window, dusty floors, being told I have to drive a mile to a dump to remove my garbage & a door that locks with no key (LEAVING US LOCKED OUT), . . . but not for what we paid.
First of all, the booking was very strange. I have booked MANY home aways and have never been forced to both provide a deposit AND purchase renter's insurance. If she is forcing you to purchase a non refundable insurance than that fee should be included in the listing AND not also require a security deposit.
Before I booked I contacted the owner to make sure if she was advertising a fireplace she provide wood. She said she would ask the caretaker to bring wood in (why she had to ask, why it wasn't standard I don't know).
The day before check in, I could see that the information on the app was never updated & out of date. Rather than a set form with simple check in instructions I got a long rambling email about all the things I have to do and to say she was rushing out of town for a funeral and forgot to ask the caretaker to provide wood (again, why does she have to ask? She is not set up for a rental). She said I could buy some and she'd pay me back "if it's not too expensive". I told her to just tell me where it was stored and I'd get i myself.
She also told me that the house was kept at 45 degrees!!! I told her this was not good, since we were arriving late at night and didn't want to come into a freezing house, I asked if her caretaker could turn the heat to 65 during the day (again, this is UNHEARD OF in any rental I've ever gone to.) She said it heated up in "minutes". We turned up the heat the second we got in the door and sat for an hour in coats and hats. After 1 hr the heat had climbed to 54 degrees.
There are so many other bizarre things like the fact that there was no welcome sheet, no dish soap, leaky window, the ap saying one thing about the wifi & checkout and it not being true, but the worst - getting locked out of the house!!
The back door had an old broken lock on the doornob. When we turned the nob to exit, the lock must have turned, and we were locked out. She did not provide a key to that lock. It was Saturday night of a holiday weekend and after an hour of no response (she was with family at a funeral) we called a locksmith and paid $200 in cash to get in.