Renter beware! I have been renting motorhomes and trailers for decades, and I owned and rebuilt my own trailer in the early 2000s. I think it's fair to say that I know a thing or 2 about RVing and camping. This clearly did NOT seem to be the case for Christian. His trailer is in decent shape for an older unit, and I really like the layout. Christian was polite and responsive throughout my rental, but there were far too many signs that pointed to his apparent lack of basic RV maintenance and understanding, but I won't list them all here. Judge for yourself, but also ask yourself whether, while on vacation, you would want to deal with the following rental trailer-related issues, which could have easily been prevented with some basic maintenance:1. No hot water. Even though my family and I were on a fully serviced campsite with city water and (shore) power, were not able to shower or wash our dishes for the first 4 nights of our 8-day trip as there was no hot water. Despite Christian assuring me that the trailer had been rented out recently, there only cold water was coming out of the hot water taps. After much back-and-forth texting with Christian, I located and opened the hot water bypass valve and hot water pipe valves -- which are hidden -- in a small, dark, and difficult-to-access crawl space in the washroom -- beneath a drawer that had to be removed -- and un-seeable as they must be felt for around a bend...In a communication thread a few days after I returned the trailer, Christian insinuated that a previous renter must have turned off the valves(!) I'm actually laughing at this suggestion.2. Dead Batteries: When I picked up the trailer from Christian in the pouring rain, the trailer's battery cap was missing. I asked about it, but Christian said he didn't know where it was and not to worry about the battery being exposed to the elements. I wasn't comfortable with this and put a bag over the battery to reduce the risk of exposure. While we had shore power for the first 2 nights of our trip, our 3rd and 4th nights were off grid, which meant that we had to rely on the trailer's battery to operate the power hitch lift, slide out, awning, water pump, lights, AND built-in carbon monoxide detector. (Fortunately, there is a separate stand-alone CO detector in the unit.) As soon as we set up, opened the slide out and awning, we noticed that the water pump was making noises and caused the lights to dim when turned on. By that evening we could only briefly run the pump long enough to flush the toilet and wash our hands. By the second night, only the interior lights, which we ran only one at a time, worked. By the second morning, at which time we needed to depart, the battery was so dead that we could not retract the awning or operate the power hitch jack. Fortunately, I called CAA/AAA ***after*** calling Outdoorsy's assist program. (Note: Outdoorsy's roadside assist would pay for the milage a service tech would have to travel to assist me but would NOT cover the cost of labour or for a boost of the trailer’s battery (!!!)) CAA/AAA came to the rescue and provided me with enough power to retract the slide out and awning and use the hitch jack. This would have been enough to get us rolling, but it would NOT have saved our trip if we did not already have shore power for the rest of our vacation, which we did. When the CAA/AAA technician ran a diagnostic test of the battery, the report clearly showed that the battery was old, in very poor condition, and needed to be replaced. Christian was kind enough to offer to reimburse me to have the battery replaced, but given that the issues that had been having with his trailer had been consuming so much of my vacation time already and knowing that I would have shore power for the rest of our trip, I elected not to spend any more of my very limited vacation time on dealing with the rental that I expected would have been far better maintained than it was.Oh, and the smoke detector started to make a pitifully weak beeping sound in the middle of the night one night midway through our trip. It turned out it's battery also needed to be replaced! (This strikes me as a major SAFETY-related check that the owner should perform BEFORE releasing their rental unit to a renter.)3. Brutal Toilet Condition: I have other indicators about the lack of basic RV maintenance and understanding that I witnessed, but I saved the most obvious one for last. When I entered the trailer with Christian upon pick up, I was assaulted by the overpowering smell of air fresheners. Something didn't smell or seem right but given that the handoff was rushed due to the rain, we just quickly opened the slide out fully and awning a bit, and checked that the interior lights worked. I didn't flush the toilet, as I always travel with empty tanks and didn't expect the toilet to work until we loaded some water in. I asked Christian where the RV toilet paper and treatment pucks were kept as I figured we would be using them for our trip. Christian pointed me to 2 rolls of 1-ply TP but said that they DON’T USE TOILET TREATMENT (!) Fortunately, I had just gone camping and had some pucks in my car that we use for our portable camping toilet. When my family and I did our initial set up, which included preparing the toilet with 2 pucks, the smell was absolutely disgusting and couldn't be cleared by using the pucks alone! We ventilated the washroom with the vent fan, but it took several days of treatments to be able to even use the toilet and washroom. Christian offered to reimburse me for treatment pucks if I found somewhere to buy them. I did find a pack on the 3rd day of our trip, and Christian did repay me for the purchase. Regardless, I continue to scratch my head as to why I, as a paying renter, should have to deal with these basic maintenance items on my vacation???!I could go on, but I'll leave my warning at this. Again, nice, older trailer, but in need of better care and maintenance by owner.
4 Photos submitted by Aubrey F.
