FAQ

The “cabin” is actually a free standing house. It’s not a condo, it’s a standalone house in the Tahoe Paradise neighborhood. We call it a cabin simply because it helps us distinguish between the house we live in in San Jose and the vacation house we visit in Lake Tahoe. We list it as CoatneyCabin / coatneycabin so people can find us. Besides, Doug’s Cabin still sounds better than Doug’s Vacation House 😉

Good question! Actually it’s interesting how infrequently we are asked this question. Most folks are very trusting and pay electronically without verifying the integrity of the individual they’re dealing with. Still verify you’re dealing with Doug Coatney / coatneycabin.com.

For us it’s simple, there are many factors that indicate we’re not a fly by night organization:

• I work for Microchip Technology Inc. (www.microchip.com)
• My professional LinkedIn page is linkedin.com/in/dougcoatney
• You’re paying a person (Doug Coatney), not a faceless agency. PayPal and Zelle: dougcoatney@gmail.com. Venmo: @Doug-Coatney
• I have my own domain registered on the internet
• I’ve been doing this for >35 years now and have numerous references if you would like.

We would happily send to you some documents to prove we exist such as:

• Our current El Dorado County Property Tax Statement
• Spectrum (Internet)
• South Tahoe Refuse (trash)
• Liberty Utilities (electricity)
• STPUD (Water/Sewer)
• Southwest Gas (natural gas)

No. Minimum stay is 30 nights. See Rates.

The cabin is located ~3 miles down Pioneer Trail in South Lake Tahoe. (Pioneer is the stoplight in Myers when you come down the pass on 50 from Placerville.) Pioneer also starts about 1 mile past where 89 hits 50 in Myers. So, the cabin is ~4 miles away from there.. 🙂

Map of 1901 Susquehana Dr, South Lake Tahoe, CA 96150

If you’ve called around any of the rental agencies in the area, you are aware that we are an extremely great bargain. If you haven’t called around, here are some current South Lake Tahoe agencies:

• Lake Tahoe Accommodations
• Tahoe Keys Resort / LakeTahoe.com
• RnR Vacation Rentals

We typically compete at a price range of the 1–2 bedroom condos which are available in town. We’re able to do this because we have very low overhead. We re-evaluate our pricing structure each year and sometimes we raise the rates, but in general we use price and word of mouth as an advertising tool.

We don’t use a property management company. As a result, when you stay with us, you deal with us directly. There’s no middleman and no additional cost.

Typical property management companies charge a fee of about 35% of the rental. For us to make the same amount of money that we do at $4,500 a month ($4,000 for 4 months or longer; December is $6,000), they’d have to charge you a lot more — and you’d get the exact same house, just pay more to the property management company.

We are very hands on and are involved in the daily operation of the rental. We strive to be entirely up front with our renters and as a result have a large number of very happy repeat renters.

We strive to make the rental process as easy as possible. This is why we make so much information available to you. We want you to be informed of what you’re getting into. Don’t be overwhelmed by all the information we present. We’re just trying to let you know as much as we can to help prevent problems.

The cabin has forced air natural gas heat throughout. We also have a wood burning stove, but this is merely for that “rustic” feel. You don’t need to use the wood burning stove unless you want to.

• Range and oven
• Keurig
• Air fryer
• Microwave
• Gas BBQ out on the deck

In general, we don’t stock the cabin with condiments (ketchup, mayo, mustard etc). We do generally make sure that there is salt and pepper available, but that’s about it. If you’re planning on cooking in the house you should plan on bringing whatever spices and/or staples you will need for your meals because the food which is left in the house varies.

In a similar vein, you should not count on there being food in the house. Occasionally we have renters who leave food in the house and if it is sealed and unspoiled, our caretakers will leave it in the cabinet. Examples are: Hot Cocoa, Popcorn, soup etc. The contents and amount varies and should not be counted on for sustenance in an emergency.

We have enough glassware, and dishes to set a table for 10 adults. There are an assortment of pots & pans for cooking spaghetti, and other meals.

The cooking supplies and dishes are kind of generic. If you are planning on cooking while in the cabin and have need of something exotic like a garlic press, food processing machine, double boiler etc etc, you might want to bring them along with you.

We stock the cabin with the following soaps:

• Dishwasher Soap
• Dish washing soap
• Liquid Hand Soap
• Shampoo
• Bath Soap
• Laundry Detergent
• Fabric Softener

If you are flying into Reno International Airport and planning on renting a car, I strongly recommend you rent something with 4WD with mud and snow tires on it. Rental car agencies do not supply their cars with chains and typically don’t want you to use them on their cars.

I have seen the roads in Tahoe require chains as early as September and as late as June. So be prepared and make sure you have chains with you or are driving a car with 4WD and mud/snow tires on it. You’ll get stuck on the other side of chain control if you don’t have them.

As for getting down our street to our house, the county plows the neighborhood when 1–2 feet accumulate. Our snow removal service clears the driveway once 6 inches accumulates, once every 24 hours. Under some situations it is possible to not need chains on the roads in town, yet you will need them in the neighborhood we live because the roads are icy or un-plowed. Typically this only happens after huge snowfalls of multiple feet, but it can happen and it is possible to be stranded in the house by snow.

Your best defense is to always have food and water on hand for several days. Of course, you’re only 3 miles from a grocery store so if worse came to worse, you could just walk out to Pioneer and hitch a ride into town.

Pioneer Trail is plowed more often — it is a major route into the area and is used for emergency vehicles. The county plows the neighborhood when 1–2 feet accumulate. Susquehana is relatively flat and goes out to Pioneer Trail. If you have a 4WD with good clearance you should not have any problems. Otherwise you might have to wait for the plows during heavy snowfall.

Our snow removal service clears the driveway once 6 inches accumulates, once every 24 hours. The county plows the neighborhood when 1–2 feet accumulate. Pioneer Trail is plowed more often. Snow shovels are in the ski locker on the deck if you need a path before they arrive.

In the summer, the nights are generally quite cool (40’s–50’s) in the Tahoe region so the cabin has an opportunity to cool down very nicely. We don’t have air conditioning because frankly we don’t think it’s necessary. Even in the dead of summer it seldomly climbs much over 80–90 degrees in the Sierras.

• To Reno Nevada Airport: ~55 miles
• To Kirkwood Ski area: 30 miles
• To Sierra at Tahoe Ski area: 12 miles
• To Heavenly Ski area (Nevada): 10 miles
• To Stateline and the Casinos: 5 miles
• To Heavenly Ski area (California): 4 miles
• To South Lake Tahoe Airport: 4 miles
• To nearest gasoline: 3 miles
• To nearest supermarket/drugstore: 3 miles
• To the Lake: ~4 miles

Our availability for popular time frames tends to book up very quickly. This is due to a large amount of repeat business and to the fact that when you compare our rates, and features we are a great bargain.

A good general rule of thumb for winter is at least 3 months in advance. For example it’s now January and we’ve been booked through March for the past month with only some gaps still available.

We generally don’t have cancellations so nothing really frees up in our schedule — but check back, you never know if it might change. Minimum stay is 30 nights.

This is a difficult situation. We’ve had several situations where people have been talking with us about staying a particular time and then were upset when that time frame was taken by someone else.

Unfortunately, we’re kind of in a catch-22 situation. We’d like to honor folks’ intentions, but we simply cannot determine by talking to someone over the phone if they are serious about renting or not. When the $800 electronic deposit lands we know that people are serious about renting. For this reason we stress that rentals are on a first come first serve basis.

Our official policy is that your reservation is only confirmed when we actually receive the $800 electronic deposit from you — not when someone talks on the phone.

PayPal and Zelle: dougcoatney@gmail.com. Venmo: @Doug-Coatney. Don’t book airline reservations until we confirm we received the deposit.

We do not accept credit cards for direct stays. If you want to pay with a card, book through Airbnb or VRBO — rates are significantly more because they charge a service fee.

Minimum stay is 30 nights.

1. Email dougcoatney@gmail.com with the dates you want.
2. $800 refundable security deposit paid electronically to reserve CoatneyCabin. PayPal and Zelle: dougcoatney@gmail.com. Venmo: @Doug-Coatney.
3. Once the deposit is received, the rental agreement goes out via Adobe Sign for review — happy to work with you on it. All electronic.
4. Payment of the first month is due 30 days in advance of arrival. If you arrive in less than 30 days, that first-month amount is due when you book. Going forward, each following month is due before the 1st of that month.

See Rates for the current deposit, cleaning charge, and monthly figures — those terms are the ones we actually rent on.

• PayPal and Zelle: dougcoatney@gmail.com
• Venmo: @Doug-Coatney
• Cash in person is ok if you are already on site

We’ve found that $450 is a reasonable amount to charge for cleaning for long term stays. This gives us the ability to take care of things along with the refundable security deposit of $800. I know that when I rented cabins in the Lake Tahoe area that allowed you to do your own cleaning I never could get the cleaning done good enough for them to return my entire security deposit — no matter how hard I tried. It really used to be a sore point with me.

By us having a cleaning charge, we can insure that the jobs that need to get done are and that you’re charged fairly for the service. Don’t think of it as a fee, think of it as a service.

We find it’s simply easier to rent long term anyhow. Minimum stay is 30 nights.

It’s simple, those are dates that we are planning on using the cabin.

As you know, credit cards require a fee from the merchant. We would have to pass this on to you in the form of higher rental charges. For direct stays we take PayPal, Venmo, or Zelle. If you want to pay with a card, book through Airbnb or VRBO — rates are significantly more because they charge a service fee. Direct booking (Zelle / PayPal to dougcoatney@gmail.com, Venmo @Doug-Coatney) is the listed $4,500 / $4,000 / December $6,000. We don’t take cards directly.

If any of the key sets are missing when you checkout, we call you and ask you to look for them. If you take a key home with you by mistake, we recommend you mail it to us CERTIFIED — it’s not our fault if the keys get lost in the mail. Mailing it certified is for your own protection.

Basically we will call a locksmith to come out to the house and re-key all the locks and cut roughly 10 new copies. The cost for this service will be deducted from your security deposit.

After your stay, we have our cleaning service stop by and clean the house. They check the house out and get back to me. In general you should have your security deposit back within a week, refunded electronically the same way you paid (PayPal, Venmo, or Zelle). Under some situations (when I’m on vacation) it might take a little longer to get it back to you. If you haven’t received it, feel free to give us a call.

The big exception to this is when something is damaged or missing from the house. We’ll have to assess each situation and will be in contact with you about the remedy of each problem.

The house is equipped to sleep 10 individuals in 4 bedrooms.

• Two queens downstairs
• Queen + twin bunks upstairs
• Queen futon upstairs

Parking is only a limited resource in the winter. This is because you can’t park on the street in winter due to snow removal. We have room for 4 midsized cars to park (2 by 2) in the driveway. Bear in mind that if you have excessively large cars (suburbans?) you might not be able to get all 4 in the driveway.

Someone always asks us this. Even though we post that checkin time is after 5:00pm — no exceptions. As with everything, there are of course exceptions.. 😉

Here’s how it works:

If you want guaranteed access to the house prior to 5:00pm — you have to pay an early arrival fee of half of one extra night, pro-rated from the monthly rate, and the night prior to your stay must not be rented.

If you simply would like to get in earlier if it’s possible without paying anything more, you can stop by the house anytime the day you’re due to arrive and if the lock box is out then the cabin is ready and you can go in early.

If the lock box is not out, then the cabin is not ready. If the cleaning service is there cleaning, they have instructions from me not to let anyone in the house early. I view this as a personal safety issue for my cleaning staff. We want to avoid any problems which might occur by someone posing as a renter who might gain access to the house and subsequently assault our cleaning staff.

The only way we allow you to checkout later than 11:00am is if you pay for late departure. This is half of one extra night, pro-rated from the monthly rate for the timeframe you’re renting. This also requires that the night of your departure not be rented to someone else.

The reason we don’t allow animals is purely due to animal dander and the allergic reactions that some people have to the animal dander. No matter how well we clean after each guest, animal dander would be left behind. For this reason we choose not to allow animals in the house. We also can’t tell the “good” pets from “bad” pets by talking with you on the phone.

We have found that having these items in the house causes more problems in the way of breakage and damage to walls. We provide a lockable ski storage locker on the side of the house for skis and snowboards and we ask that you lock your bikes to the deck instead of bringing them inside.

The answer is two fold. First it’s just not necessary because we supply a gas BBQ at the house and second because using lighter fluid and charcoal in the summer is not a wise thing to do. Plus the deck and trees close to the house could easily burn.

We don’t allow smoking in the house for a multitude of reasons. The most important being that we find the lingering smell of tobacco smoke nauseating. We also don’t want the house or furnishings damaged by stray ashes or a smoldering cigarette.

We apologize to those guests who do smoke, but we ask that they respect our wishes and smoke only outside and dispose of their butts in the appropriate trash receptacle. I.E. not in the yard.

The house is approximately 1700sqft inside and there is a large deck wrapping around the house outside as well. The house is two story consisting of a kitchen and living room, two bedrooms and a bathroom downstairs. While there are one bedroom, a bathroom and a large game room doubling as the 4th bedroom upstairs.

The house does not have a view of Lake Tahoe, but it is in a very cozy wooded area and has great privacy. Due to the large pine trees towering around you there isn’t a lot that can be seen other than the trees.

There are numerous gentle slopes in the neighborhood that can be used for sledding and snow play including the national forest on the sides of the house. If more “extensive” slopes are desired the best places are at Snow Parks along Highway 50. The best being just past Echo Summit heading back toward Sacramento on Highway 50.

If you do decide to go to a Snow Park, be sure and stop at the Shell station in Myers and purchase a day pass. The passes are not available for sale at the snow parks. The snow park passes only cost a few dollars, but the fine for not having one is $75 and they do write tickets VERY frequently.

Catalyst Community (formerly Choices for Children) can suggest local caregivers: www.catalystcomm.org

No, we do not provide any wood for the wood burning stove. It’s logistically just too difficult. You can easily obtain Duraflame logs at the grocery store as well as a box of Oak firewood.

The major recommended route into South Lake Tahoe is Highway 50.

Alternative routes I can suggest are:

From Sacramento:

1. Highway 88 through Jackson to Highway 89 and into South Lake Tahoe.
2. Interstate 80 to Highway 267 to Highway 50 in Nevada and into South Lake Tahoe.

The Highway 88/89 route is shorter than 80 or 50 for that matter, but it is 2 lane traffic the whole way.