Hyperbolically speaking, my ranting and raving about Eden Cove 9 will never end.
Or will it…?
Friends…Romans…Countrypeoples…at long last we have arrived at the final leg of our journey that should in theory land us in the Guiness Book of World Records under “World’s Longest Vacation Rental Review.” Indeed, it is my hope that this is the very last time I have to remind you that I thought it was a good idea to air all the grievances I managed to collect during the 5 weeks my fam and I took refuge at the beach house known as Eden Cove 9 (aka EC9) while our home was being repaired and renovated.
If you need to catch up, you can do so here, but in case your in the mood for some brevity, all you really need to know is that this place had to have been designed with the goal of passively-aggressively slowly driving guests mad.
It’s as if every little detail was crafted to mess with your head in small and asinine ways–nothing exciting or obvious–just a thousand little pains in your ass, each one so small that no one would believe your complaint to be an overt act of aggression–ergo, why I’ve been using terms like “purgatory” and “almost hell” instead of outright likening it to Hades.
But when you stand back and survey it all, you see very clearly that this place was…odd. Everything seemed just a little bit off…
I’ve waited a long time to reveal to you my own pet theory, and finally here it is: It felt like being in a sci-fi/horror/psychological thriller where there is some malevolent force–say, aliens–that is trying to hold you captive without you knowing it. And to do so, they try to trick you into thinking that everything is normal by creating a fake version of reality and plop you into it.
Why would they do this? Maybe we’re part of one of their scientific experimentations? Or perhaps we’re their favorite food supply, but can only be truly enjoyed when eaten fresh? I don’t know…that’s not really the point.
Anyways, these beings manage to do a pretty good job of mimicking the reality you expect–say, they nail it with 97% accuracy. But, not being humans, they totally overlook details such as providing an elevator shaft but no elevator, or make the toilets easy for their alien hands to flush, not human hands.
…and just like in The Truman Show, you slowly realize that your entire world is a facade.
…
That’s what it was like to live in EC9 for 5 weeks, my friends. Thirty-five days of constantly questioning your own sanity. Fun times, indeed.
Welp, enough of my digressions. I best get to my last few items and then we can all be done with this fiasco once and for all…
Level 7: Purgatory Freezes Over
“You want some clean, cold water? Hah! Good luck with that!”
For the first 2 weeks or so, we had to constantly keep our bottled water supply fully stocked. Unlike at home, EC9’s fridge didn’t have the indispensable1Pun alert, mother ----- ! amenities of a built-in ice or water dispenser.
…or so we thought. I eventually made this discovery:
So…good news/bad news: the good news was that we did have access to cold filtered water. The bad news is, O-M-F-G, how insanely inconvenient can you make it?!? As you can see from my mini-movie, it fully required 2-3 hands–like “oh, you want some refreshing water? Well it’s going to cost you! You better think long and hard about whether it’s really worth the effort!”
I also couldn’t help be reminded of this classic Far Side:
Jeez, this is so on-brand for EC9, it’s not even funny…
“We’re all freezing down here!”
Boy was I tired of hearing Mother Dearest exaggerate about how cold they were at night on the first level, while we folks on the third level were getting the night sweats every stinking evening. (Though, in her defense, I simply couldn’t use any of the showers down there because it would be rather frigid when naked, even in the middle of the day…)
“Well, you have your own dang thermostat–just turn it up!”
With a thermostat on each of EC9‘s 3 levels, I could not understand how this was a problem. Why couldn’t we all be comfortable? Yet somehow, nobody was comfortable.
After only 4-5 days into our stay, and after 4-5 nights of nobody really getting any good sleep, I finally tried to investigate further into what the hey-ho was going on with the A/C.
Being ever the astute scientist, I decided it was best to proceed by changing one variable (i.e. thermostat) at a time, and then observe what effects that change induced (i.e. if the vents on a given level on were blowing air, and if so, was it hot or cold air?).
It sounded simple enough in theory, but quickly devolved into sheer madness. For example, I would set the thermostat on the third level so it should be blowing hot air up there. The result? The second floor air would turn off, and the first floor would still be blasting cold air. There should have been zero correlation there!
Later on, when I tried setting the second floor thermostat to cool, the third floor air shut off, and the first floor started blowing hot air. The holy ----- is going on here?!?
After about 3 rounds of complete and utter insanity of this variety I broke down and had one of these moments:
After that, I broke down and called those jackasses that call themselves the Better Beach Rentals maintenance team. Fortunately, the A/C pro the sent over came pretty quickly, because by then the whole place was being blasted with hot air and even turning the entire system off–get this–did not stop the heat from coming out of the ----- vents.
But oh man, I had no idea what I was in for when the grizzled ol’ A/C guy rolled up. He insisted on walking me through every single step of his trouble shooting process as if I was his protege-in-training, including having me feel the various copper tubes hooked up to the A/C-slash-furnace system.
“You feel that?”
He would gaze into my eyes looking for a response…which was incredibly awkward, to say the least.
“Uh, that’s…warm?”
“And…”
“And…it shouldn’t be that warm?”
“Bingo! Now let me explain to you what these red and yellow wires are connected to, Young Grasshopper…”
I’m not exaggerating. Except for him calling me “Young Grasshopper.” I embellished that part a wee bit.
And so it went…he would explain something to me in waaaaay too much detail, and then peer into the windows of my soul to see if I was appreciating his wisdom and knowledge on a deeper level. It was exhausting.
Oh, speaking of ‘levels,’ he dragged me and his ladder up to the third level balcony, where he proceeded to have me assist him in climbing onto the roof to get to the actual cooling unit. Because, of course, that’s where they had put the freakin’ thing. The whole time he was up there, I was just sure that he was going to slip and fall 4 stories to his death before my very eyes. Luckily, he made it back down safely.
After that, we somehow got off on a tangent taking a grand tour of Every. Single. Vent. In the. Whole. House. I guess, he vaguely remembered servicing that very unit several years previous, which had the comedic result of him closing his eyes and turning every which way, and then almost shouting as he pointed “Over there! Over there! There’s one hidden under the entertainment system!” …as if he was divining for water or something.
He even made me help him move the huge-ass entertainment center, just so he could have the satisfaction of proving how good his memory was. He was right, by the way–that dude had thermodynamic memory, if you will.
Eventually we made our way back down the first level where the main unit was, and we repeated the whole “Feel this copper tube, my friend” business, with him naturally being pleased as a pickle that he was able to get it back to cooling. If you’re wondering, the system had somehow got stuck in emergency heating mode, and since–fun fact–that either the whole system is either blowing hot air or blowing cold air in any given moment, EC9 had been literally turning into the hell that we were already suspecting it to be.
Anyways, the old dude, quite pleased with his days’ work, eventually left after about another hour of completely unrelated regaling…
“Why is still so ----- cold in here?!?”
I could only imagine that Mom was dropping the f-bomb in her head when, 1 or 2 days later, we discovered that we could simply not keep the cold air from blasting the first level any time we were trying to cool the much toastier upper levels.
“Dangit, I guess I’ll call the maintenance guy again…”
Old Man A.C. had made it sound like I could personally give him a ring should anything go awry again, but unfortunately (or maybe fortunately) he failed to give me his direct number. So I ended up having to deal with the BBR maintenance chain of command again, and eventually they sent out some young buck from the same A/C company.
After some troubleshooting that was much less involved for me (thanks be to the gods!), he determined that the flap that controls the air flow into the first level was busted. But the way they work, they are open by default, and so it was stuck open indefinitely, causing our personal hell to freeze over.
“No worries, bro! I’ll order that new part and we’ll have you fixed up and all comfortable-like in no time!”
Can you guess where this is going? Yup, it played out just like the “we’ll fix your elevator right away” ball of tomfoolery.2I really wanted to say “tomfuckery” here, but figured I would spare my mother the shame.
Three weeks. Three ----- weeks. They had that long to get what I presume to be a fairly common part, and yet they failed. By the day we finally vacate the premises, they still hadn’t fixed it.
Were we surprised? No.
Were we disappointed? Most definitely.
Again, I’m left to wonder if they ever even actually ordered the part. And judging by all the other evidence that I’ve presented to y’all over the last several months–and some other exhibits I’ve withheld–I’m very much inclined to say that those cheap-ass incompetent nincompoops never did, and instead they just hoped that future vacationers would never be there long enough to really complain about it…
All that to say, you can bet your bottom dollar that I’m no fan of this place that hath robbed me of a little bit of my soul, and the fools that ran it.
So much so, in fact, that when it came time for our annual late summer beach vacation–and don’t you dare try to tell me that those 5 weeks at the beach were a ‘vacation’–the Boss Lady suggested foregoing our usual spot of Carolina Beach, and finding a place in Oak Island.
I had to sit her down and explain to her that thanks to EC9 and the folks at BBR, I was suffering from a bit of PTSD, and that I never wanted to set foot on that god-forsaken island again in my life. I actually don’t understand how she wasn’t traumatized either, but that might have been because she was focused on her work, and unlike me, wasn’t simultaneously being traumatized by handling all our remodeling shenanigans.
But I digress.
The point of the story is, if you’re ever in Oak Island, NC, and in need of a place to stay, for the love all that is holy, stay as far away as you can from a little piece of purgatory on Earth they call Eden Cove.
Come to think of it, stay far away from Better Beach Rentals altogether while you’re at it. I went back and did some retrospective Google research on them fools, and peeped at some of the less than kind reviews (and there were PLENTY). Big mistake…but a highly entertaining one that I recommend you make for yourself…
Content created on: 17/18 September 2021 (Fri/Sat)
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