So says the HomeAway.com listing for "The Little House" at 958-1/2 Ocean Blvd, Plaice Cove, in Hampton, NH. That phrase is preposterous and shows just how out of touch Susan Koster is about the appropriateness of this property for small children.
Here are all the ways this place is unsafe for small kids:
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| 958-1/2 Ocean Blvd Hampton NH - Kids trying to climb down from the deck to the beach over the treacherous boulders. There is no path for direct access to the beach. |
- Climbing from the deck over boulders is the only direct access to the beach. I pray that you don't decide to monitor your children from the deck. If they got in trouble down on the beach you would need to scramble over boulders and rocks to get to them. You very likely could break your ankle and not make it to your child very quickly or in any condition to help. The safest access to the beach is walking two houses North and using the public access way between houses, then circling back toward the cottage. I'm not sure why Susan Koster hasn't moved some rocks around to make a safer path to the beach, but she hasn't, and so we spent the week trying to keep our 2-year-old from seriously injuring herself while climbing over the rocks to get to and from the beach.
- Exposed electrical wires, junction boxes, and outlets. As I mentioned in another post, there are no internal walls (paneling, drywall, plaster) and so the electrical work is all exposed on the inside of the house. Dangerous and probably out of code. We had a 3-year-old nephew visit one day and we had to stop him from sticking his fingers into the wiring of an outlet near a table he had crawled beneath.
- Nails protruding from the walls. Hundreds of them, all over the place. As I mentioned in another post, these are the nails used to hang the vinyl siding on the outside of the house. If a small child stumbled near a wall they would probably need a trip to the hospital.
- The "short-stay guest/storage/laundry room" has sharp tools scattered all over the place. I explained in an earlier post it is actually a garage with a couple of beds placed in it. Well, like most garages, it is chocked full of saws and shovels and hedge trimmers and other power tools. This was our 2-year-old daughter's bedroom.
- The beach itself is rocky and rough. After you climb over the boulders and arrive down on the beach, you realize that most of the beach surface is not sand, it is gravel. If you are barefoot, you will find yourself carefully picking your way along, trying to avoid the sharpest gravel. Getting into the water is very difficult because the waves are beating against you and forcing you to catch your balance on jagged gravel. Now imagine trying to guide a 2-year-old into the water under these circumstances. Only at absolute low tide is the water calm enough for a small child (or anyone else) to enter safely and comfortably. Pro tip: buy some "aqua socks." Click for more details and a review of the beach at Plaice Cove, Hampton NH.
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| 958-1/2 Ocean Blvd Hampton NH - Here's a shot from the beach. You can see there is no path to follow to get back up to the deck, it is all rocks & boulders. |
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| 958-1/2 Ocean Blvd Hampton NH - Exposed electrical wiring, junction boxes and outlets. Very dangerous for anyone, but especially a curious small child. Also, it is probably a fire hazard and against building codes. Also, if you zoom in you can see the points of dozens of nails sticking through the walls. The nails were used to affix the vinyl siding to the outside, but they are sticking through the walls. |
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| 958-1/2 Ocean Blvd Hampton NH -This is the "short-stay guest/storage/laundry room." It is a garage with a couple of beds in it. Like most garages it has sharp tools scattered all over the place. Here you can see an electric hedge trimmer, a rusty shovel, and the red handles of hedge snippers placed in close proximity to a child's chair. |
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