We were born and raised in Alpena and come back every summer. This summer we have a new dog so I looked for a pet friendly home and booked this one about 7 months in advance of our stay. Our family consists of myself, my husband, our 4 children, and our golden retriever. The house was very musty, random cobwebs, many light bulbs were burned out making it feel dark in some areas of the house and there were very large ants in the kitchen throughout our stay. However, I did not intend to leave a negative review because overall we had a nice time and I'm simply not one to leave negative reviews, but I will say I would not have stayed again. After we checked out the homeowner charged us a huge cleaning fee and sent me a message that said “Furniture shoved all over, dog food all over, house smelled like puke.” None of that is true and so that prompted this review. When I contacted the homeowner to discuss, he texted me that his cleaning service had told him these things. My mother-in-law and my sister were there the morning we checked out and some friends came by to tell us goodbye. Several families saw the house the morning we checked out and could attest to it being properly cleaned up, we would never leave a house in the condition we were accused and I don’t even know what to say about the “smelled like puke” part. I’m not sure if he was trying to make it sound like we had a party or something but I will say that I had to buy candles and an air diffuser our first day there to put around the house because of the musty smell and we had the windows open the entire week we were there to air it out which was fine because the weather was beautiful. We have rented several homes and we’ve always had good reviews and positive interactions with the homeowner so I truly don’t know what to make of this one but the lesson I learned this time is to always take pictures when you leave, that is something that never occurred to me as something I would need to do. The only thing this homeowner said that was true was that we didn’t tell him we had a dog. We are new dog owners so I obviously looked for a place that allowed pets but the reservation didn’t ask if I had a pet and it didn’t occur to me to specifically message him after I made the reservation to tell him I had one. I was absolutely fine with the pet fee, but being a new dog owner, I just honestly didn’t realize there was one. If you stay, take pictures when you leave, that’s the bottom line.