While in Melbourne for the holidays, we needed boarding for our horses and a place for our 40 foot LQ trailer. Prior to our trip, a family friend recommend a place in Rockledge, FL which turned out to be Happy Hooves (we thought they were recommending a private residence). This person became the middle man between us and the facility and advised us the rate would be $20.00/night to stall our horses & leave our trailer. We were told our horses would be turned out and fed daily.
We arrived at on schedule the afternoon of 12/23 and Claudia Davis (the owner) greeted us. The stalls they offered were very small and dark (both horses had to duck to get into them). When we asked when/how they would be turned out she told us that was not part of the arrangement, that we were simply renting the stalls and anything additional would need to be discussed/arranged. She then INSISTED on full payment up front of $250.00. When we questioned her on how a 5 night stay at $20.00/night could be $250.00 she said the rate was $25.00/night per horse. When an email was produced showing she quoted $20.00/night for the horse's she said she replied to that email that the price went up. Since information prior to arriving was being handled by a middle man, we figured something got lost in translation and paid the $250.00, but told her that our horses needed to be moved to an outside stall we saw that had a small narrow run with shelter. She agreed. We told her we would be by every morning to take care of the feeding/watering ourselves.
On 12/26 when we went to feed the horses, we found they were moved from the original outside stall to an open field with no shelter, poor fencing and electric wires laying on the ground. When questioned, we were told our horses broke a fence and had to be moved & there was no place else to put them. Ms. Davis, was not at the premises so I asked her daughter to call her. I was handed the phone to speak with Ms Davis and asked her why our horses were moved without any notice or consideration for their well being. Ms Davis's attitude on the phone was confrontational and the conversation was not going well so I told her I would be taking them out right then and asked for a refund for the 2 days that the horses would not be there. At this point not only was she confrontational but she was then telling me to get my *#$#% horses off her property and that we owed her money for the downed fence and hung up on me.
In my frustration, I pocketed the daughters cell phone and told the girl I was holding it until her mother came home and discussed the situation with me like a professional. The daughter then got hysterical, went into the house and when she came back out (still hysterical) said she called the police. The phone was handed back to her before the police arrived as I realized my issue was with her mother and not with her. The police questioned all parties that were present (my sister and 2 of her friends were with me) and determined that we had the right to remove the horses, and found no reason for the girls hysterics or any reason to detain or pursue legal action. So we loaded up and left.
I immediately put a stop payment on the check and had every intention of sending Ms Davis another check for $150 to cover the time the horses were there, until I received several threatening, vulgar text messages from her. The messages were bad enough that I called the officer who came to the scene. He added the threats to the earlier report and advised us to be sure our trailer and horses were secured and safe, and to call back if anything out of the ordinary happened to the trailer or horses.
The purpose of this complaint is to alert others about the conditions of this facility as well as the unprofessional demeanor of the owner/operator. If we would have known this wasn't a private residence from the beginning, we would have checked it out ourselves and probably would not have opted to stay there!
0 comments