Corolla NC Beach Realty Seabreeze 4 unit 572

The Good:
Close to the beach (two blocks)
Good price (off season)
Air conditioner
Wifi (once I got it working)
Relatively quiet
Outdoor second floor porch
Programmable thermostat


The Bad:
Not that clean
Dated furniture and decor
Dirty utensils
Dangerous Stairwell
Customer support
Broken fixtures and furniture
Bad ceiling fans
No backyard
Tetanus BBQ


We decided to try renting a house on Long Beach Island in North Carolina since so many people make the trek. The house we stayed at was located in near Corolla (Cor ale a according to the locals). It was our first time renting a house. Definitely try to rent during the off season because the prices are half. If you can, try to arrive on the island in the morning, because traffic is terrible since there is only one bridge onto the island.


What you need to bring:

Soap (dish washing, handsoap for each sink, laundry detergent, dishwasher soap)
Sponges
Paper towels
Sheets
Blankets
Pillows
Toilet paper
Tissues

Food

What they provide:
Wifi router
Some pots and pans
Some utensils


The house has a nice garage that is covered. Most of the houses don't have a covered garage. It is really nice since it will rain at least once when you are here toward the end of August.

You have walk up a set of stairs to the first floor which has all the bedrooms.

Bedrooms have that lovely 70s wood paneling decor which meant they didn't want to upgrade to something this decade or they went with a cheap durable option. I'm thinking the owner just never got out of the 70s. 

This bedroom in the corner of the house had the wifi router which was behind the TV. It is a plus that they offered a wifi router but it was a negative that it was really hard to work. The router had to be reset to the original specs in order for any of us to log in. It's a good thing I knew how to do a hard reset  on this router. I was temped to flash DDWRT on the router but I didn't want to waste my time on something I would only use for month. 

I am always concerned when a place has wood paneling. You never know what's underneath. I guess that is the same for dry wall but at least you know it was updated within the last 20 years.

I should have brought my lava lamp. It would gone really well with the paneling.

You do have to navigate a winding staircase going up to the main floor that has the kitchen and living area. It was scary to do and even scarier going down but there was plenty of wood paneling to cushion your fall.

I did fall once or twice and then I got use to it. Oh look, more wood paneling. 

Try to go down or up when you're a little tipsy.

We put in a service call to fix the outside light because there are no street lights and it's pitch black at night. When they came, we were not in the house and they locked a deadbolt to the house which we didn't have a key for. When we called, the woman at the desk didn't "have" a car and we had to drive to the place to pick up the key. Annoying and the staff was not friendly.

There was minor things that were broken like this bathroom lamp and the vinyl blinds and missing and broken pieces. Nothing too major but it made the place look run down. 

The owner really does love the 70s. This was either his old receiver or he picked this up on Craig's List for free. This model came out in 1974. It was actually a very good receiver when it came out and didn't sound too bad. It does with the 70s decor.  

They did offer a moder dvd player. And by modern I mean 1990s dvd player. It worked. 

They actually did have a flat screen tv and really nice B&W speakers. If they had a better receiver it would sounded even better. You really don't come down here to watch tv so I thought it was a nice addition. 

This was the most modern item in the entire house. It was builder's grade thermostat which was nice and worked well. 

The kitchen had some appliances. Everything needed to be clean though. None of it was really ready to use clean. Be prepared to do cleaning for the first hour when you are there.

The living area next to the kitchen. 

This house had two decks. One off the top floor and one off of one of the bedrooms on the second floor. 

It had a wash off area outside. It really needed to be cleaned. It had a bumper crop of green algae and moss growing.

The bathrooms were, you guessed it, 70s themed. Everything worked well. I wish it was cleaner though. 

This is what they called a ceiling fan which looked like it was built in the 50s. It was tiny and spun very slowly so there wasn't much air movement from the fan. 

This is what they called a backyard.

This was their "picnic" area.

This was the grill they had you could use. Tetanus anyone?

Overall it was a good experience but I'm not renting this house. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone else either unless you get it really, really cheap. I can't imagine paying double of what we did to stay there.