Wilgus Associates

This was my first experience using this rental agency and staying in Bethany Beach. I rented a condo for myself and a group of girlfriends for a relaxing Bachelorette weekend. I was kind of turned off from the beginning when it came to renting. The rental agency sent me an email confirming the unit and confirming the 2 dates that my credit card would be charged. Essentially they charged two thirds of the cost of the unit when I booked the room and the last third one month before we rented the unit. When I got the charges I was a little confused there was an «Admin Fee» «Sec Dep Waiver» «Security Deposit Key» and «Service Fee» When I wrote an email asking about these fees I was told that the contract that they were mailing would explain. I soon received a contract several pages long with multiple lines where I needed to initial and sign. This contract seemed like overkill to me and much more like I was purchasing the house then staying in it for 3 days. I signed the agreement and returned it then when it came time for them to charge my card for the last payment I was sent a receipt that they insisted I print sign and return, which for me was a hassle. At the time I sent the final payment I also asked about the check in process, the agreement states that it was at 3:00 pm but since I was coming in late that night I wanted to know the procedure. I never received an email in response and honestly I was so busy with planning wedding stuff that I never really followed up on it. On Thursday when my girlfriends were getting ready to drive to the beach we tried calling to find out about check in procedures, no one answered, the office closes at 5:00 pm. We searched the contract for any additional information and verified that the only thing we had was a maintenance number, we called that and were told that she was not 100% sure but that our package with our keys was probably inside Wilgus near the brochures. It was a little nerve wrecking setting out from DC with no idea if we would be able to get into the condo when we arrived. Sure enough when we got there we had a package with our keys inside however there was not any information about where our condo was, there was a totally illegible map and our key indicated that we were 91. Well after driving around Sea Pines village for 30 minutes or so and having no luck finding 91 I finally had to look up the condo listing and saw number (1) so at 11:30 pm I was sneaking up to door number 1 to see if the key would open the unit and it did! Walking into the condo we were fine with the accommodations, its not glamorous and the furniture is outdated but its a rental and we were not expecting it to be luxurious. We went upstairs and were surprised to find that the beds had no sheets on them and that there were no towels?!? We started looking in the drawers and instead of finding clean sheets and towels we found an oversize pair of dirty women’s underwear, YUCK!!! Since it was after hours we had to just deal with it, luckily we had brought our own beach towels and used those to cover the pillows and slept on top of the comforters but it was less than ideal. The next morning I got an email from Wilgus with the check in and check out procedures… a little late don’t you think? This document STILL would NOT have told us how to get our keys after hours but it did indicate that we would need to rent our own linens «Guests will need to supply their own linens, towels, beach equipment and also toiletries paper and soap» and rental company was provided. I don’t know if this is a common practice for beach rentals but I have never heard of this or encountered it before and neither had any of the people I was staying with. I assume that when I paid $ 900 for the weekend that things like towels and toilet paper would be a given. So we ordered sheets etc for the rest of the weekend, to be honest it would have almost been cheaper to buy them ourselves, what a rip off. The condo itself ended up being fine, we washed the comforters since they looked dirty but other than that the place worked out. When we went to check-​out we followed the instructions and made sure that we were out by 10 am — not easy after a night of drinking to clean and pack up an entire condo, clean it all, strip the sheets, take out the garbage, do the dishes etc and if you are not out by 10 am then they keep your deposit! UGH Will I stay here again? NO will I use Wilgus again? NO NO NO!!! It may appear that renting a beach condo is cheaper but in the end with all of the things they charge you for it is not at all cheaper. The 4 of us could have stayed ocean front with a view for what this place ended up costing and we would not have had to put on our own sheets. If you do decide to get a condo use Airbnb.