My wife and I rented this house for a week in June of 2009. The pictures were very attractive and the location was perfect, the north shore of Kauai in Hanalei. Dawn, the owner, seemed pleasant enough from her emails and the price was within our budget. Imagine our disappointment when we arrived and found the place in horrible shape. Dust and dirt everywhere, the ceiling fans not working. The DVD player not working AND cat feces in the bedroom. My wife is allergic to cats so after one miserable night we left and were fortunate enough to find a another place which is difficult on such notice. Our attempts to deal directly with the owner went nowhere, despite our numerous attempts. Our attempt to deal with VRBO (Vacation Rentals By Owner) went nowhere despite the fact that their complaints department agreed with our list of complaints and voiced genuine concern about the listing. Finally, our attempts to get the 2nd half of the rent refunded from our Credit Card (CitiBank Visa) were unsuccessful for reasons that were never explained to us. WARNING TO ALL who plan to rent a home for a vacation! 1. Insist on a contract that stipulates the return policy. 2. Don't use CitiBank Visa!

WARNING #2: The owner has craftily changed the name of the house on VRBO to "Red Ginger Retreat." Same property. Same dump!

There are a lot of great houses to rent in Kauai. Avoid this one!