Sea Star Realty

First and foremost, I cannot explain the heart-wrenching feeling when we first walked into Beach Haven and saw southern roaches alive and dead in multiple locations, multiple floors. We were then greeted with multiple snake-skins and overall mess in the garage area; With our family coming in from multiple locations across the east coast, the only thing we could do was clean. The Sea Star offices were closed, we left a message, and followed up Monday. There was an emergency number that was available on the weekends that we used due to the garage door not closing. We were offered to have cleaning services, but no way I wanted to have strangers now going through 10 of my family's belongings; and we already spent hours cleaning ourselves at that point.

We cleaned each room the best we could before family began to arrive. Luckily, we found a vacuum cleaner under a mess of cushions jammed in a closet. The vacuum canister was full of repulsive crap that had not been emptied in what looked like months. Behind/under much of the furniture was an assortment of southern roaches, other dead bugs, and filth. Both inside stairways had dead roaches and dirt. In the bedroom, there were (2) prescription type pills on the floor. Many of the blinds were broken and could not be closed/opened. Bed comforters were thrown into closets on the dirty floor with no concern for cleanliness. In the kitchen plates were full of mold and when we loaded them into the dishwasher, we found it was broken and could not be repaired. The water filter in the refrigerator was expired.

We literally vacuumed each room pulling furniture out from the wall and cleaning what was absolutely disgusting behind and under. We opened the porch doors and the furniture was not covered and nasty dirty. One of the love-seats has a broken leg and not useable. It was something that no one took any time to prepare for guest/renters.

The next day we took over an hour to clean/sweep the garage, hide the snake-skins from all, and pickup pool/beech toys. Again, no one had any thought of making this presentable to families coming in as a perceived high-end vacation destination.

On Monday during standard business hours, we received a call from Sea Star. We spoke to a woman who was like a recording: we can send someone out for the cleaning and broken equipment; we asked to speak with the manager and finally after many interactions spoke with Taylor, the Office Manager.

We attempted to explain to Taylor how many things were broken, the mess/disgust, and were talking to deaf ears. She was like a recording of, we will send someone out to clean, and we will send someone out to fix, and we will really do nothing for you. We were literally on the phone for 20 minutes with Taylor talking to a wall. I think there is a book they just refer to for customers that are calling in for a hint of empathy.

With all of that stated:

• Garage Door sensor failing and not allowing door to shut (repaired Monday)


• Refrigerator water filter has expired (replaced Monday)


• Dishwasher not functional (parts ordered, no repair)


• Pool lights are not functional (attempted/failed repair)


• Dishes in cupboard, plates, bowls, etc. had mold and had to be washed by hand


• Ground level room with access to pool has mold/mildew smell, not a place to spend any time without needing a trip to the ER with respiratory failure


• Shades throughout house non-functional


• The shower area by pool for washing off sand/changing was so nasty/disgusting no one would even enter

In the end, Taylor offered $200 for cleaning fees and their team offered a small container of dish washing soap to wash all dishes by hand.

Never, never again will we use this service. The customer facing team has no compassion for what this does to a family coming in for a vacation at Pawley's Island. I said to Taylor I hoped this was an exception and not the norm, then read other reviews with very similar results.

This management team should be ashamed for allowing this to happen. Hold your inspection team, and cleaning team accountable for not doing their job. Fix the problem, do not just offer an insult to resolve.

This review of Sea Star Realty was originally published on SoCoastal by Lee and is the subjective opinion of the SoCoastal user and not of SoCoastal.