This story originally appeared on Business Insider
- Two families are suing after claiming the owners of their rental property refused to solve problems with the home.
- The guests claim they were not allowed to adjust the air conditioning.
- According to the suit, the family paid $10,000 for a 14-day stay in the Hamptons.
Two New York families filed a lawsuit claiming that their vacation was ruined when the owners of their rental home in the Hamptons prevented them from adjusting the air conditioning by two degrees.
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Toby Cohen and Jonathan Neman claim that their families were treated as “squatters” and had their safety threatened during their 14-day stay at a luxury rental home in the Hamptons owned by Agnese Melbarde and Edouard Gass, according to the suit.
“Based on the foregoing incidents, Melbarde and Gass breached the Agreement to provide Plaintiffs with a “vacation rental,” The lawsuit stated. “Rather, the situation was more akin to Plaintiffs being treated as squatters that Melbarde and Gass were trying to remove from the Property by making it unlivable, uninhabitable, and unsafe.”
According to the lawsuit, Cohen and Nemen agreed to pay $10,000 to rent the luxury home for their family’s vacation from August 22 to September 5.
According to the complaint, the two families who all stayed in the house, and one of whose wife included an 8-month pregnant mother and children under 8, could not sleep comfortably for the rest of the stay.
The two-story, three-bedroom home, which was listed as a “vacation rental” was cooled and heated by a small central air conditioning controlled by a Nest thermostat set to a minimum temperature of 70 degrees, according to the suit.
The family claims they could not set the temperature of the home they were renting, adding that due to the air conditioning unit’s location on the opposite side of the home from the bedrooms, their rooms were not receiving airflow.
Melbarde refused to adjust the temperature from 70 degrees to 68, knowing that the air conditioner did not properly cool the house after the two families requested the change, the family claims.
Cohen and Neman said their families were “forced to endure continuous discomfort” during their stay at the Hampton house.
According to the lawsuit, the backyard of the house was sprayed with insecticide without the family being warned ahead of time.
“When informed of the problems, Melbarde and Gass, rather than attempting to help rectify the issues that were entirely in their control, essentially told Plaintiffs and their children to suck it up and deal,” the lawsuit claims.
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