Mango, so sorry this happened to you. We have had two separate incidences of this at our Grayton home. One was just two weeks ago. Paula, I like your idea of writing a letter to the editor of their hometown newspaper and I will be penning one to the local paper in Anderson, NC. After the most recent incident, we had the house completely blocked out next year for the month of March and in April up until Easter week, when real familes come. Even if there isn't outright damage, the angst is not worth it, not to mention the concern of some kid being hurt badly or worse while there.
I am appalled at how many parents will swear and sign agreements to the effect that they will be on the premises at all times, then head for the hills after procuring the keys for their angels. Do not ever believe that your rental/management company is screening effectively, because that practice stops with handing out the keys. In fact, in our instance the County Sheriff was called out and the management was on a vacation of their own. Rentals are apparently down considerably and they will rent to anyone. They won't even charge these people the actual cost of the cleanup for fear that the abusers won't come back next year.
In our house, housekeeping stopped counting at 20 empty cases of beer and multiple half-gallon empties of liquor, hundreds of cigarette butts on the decks (a deck table used as an ashtray) and pool area, projectile vomiting on several walls and all along baseboards, and a bucket of vomit left in the walk-in food pantry. I don't even want to think about how drunk one has to be to throw up onto a wall. The mother, a registered nurse, swore she was there with these nine girls. When I called the house, the "parent" on the premises thanked me for "taking a chance on these girls." That should have been the first clue. I will also add that this woman did not sound like the parent of a teenager. I will say it again: Parents, you think this kind of thing is always done by someone else's kid. Think again. Left unsupervised, what you have is an alcohol-fueled free for all with drugs and sex (yes, we find evidence of those, too), and other unspeakable activities. You are out of your minds to let your children go off on a group trip like this without responsible parents along. Forget this chaperone stuff, because our experience is that is the person who buys the alcohol!
As to recourse, our management company has collected damages from the charge card on both occasions when we had problems. They have also required the renters to pay for extra cleaning or carpet cleaning. They take photographs of the house to make their own case and you are entitled to have copies of these. We sent these indecent photos to the first problem parents, who assumed all damages and actually strictly disciplined the kids through their college counseling office. (Parents left the house because the grandmother took a turn for the worse and actually died...house was overrun by kids evicted from another house.) In the second instance, we will send photos to the parents and write that embarrassing letter to their local newspaper.
You have the right to evict anyone who is occupying your home under breach of the contract. Our management company kicked the first offenders out; they lost both rent and their entire deposit, plus damages. If you have occasion to think there are unsupervised underage kids drinking alcohol and disturbing the peace, you can also call the County Sheriff and have him arrest the entire bunch. More than likely, drugs will be found on the premises, too. (This is when you will see parents, by the way. They will be burning up Hwy. 331 to make bail so their angel doesn't have a record that would be of interest to an Ivy League recruiter.)
In the end, the only way to make sure this doesn't happen is to not allow your property to be rented during the key time slots. In addition to March through Easter, you should also take care of the last week in May/first in June. That is senior trip week and most younger children are not yet out of school. Parents are not firmly tethered to Planet Earth about the realities of young people and alcohol, drugs, sex. Management companies are oriented to your renters, not to owners, and they flee the area at the end of the day or go on vacation to miss the entire mess. Maybe when their revenues are reduced considerably, they will start to do something meaningful in the way of prevention. But probably not. I was recently told, "Well, maybe they had a little too much fun." Vomiting on a wall doesn't sound like much fun to me...
