What are the worst California timeshares?

[Rent_Share Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Rent_Share]

Paradise in South Lake Tahoe California

[4ARedOctober Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close 4ARedOctober]

I have to agree that Inn at Silver Lakes must be at the top of the list of the pits in CA....awful, and really awful staff.

They can't even give these weeks away...two free banked RCI weeks and only $199 closing costs....WOW....talk about hurting.

Ebay Item number: 260143144311


2 FREE WEEKS,THE INN AT SILVER LAKES, DEED, TIMESHARE
California; Floating , Annual Usage, On Golf Course

Starting bid: US $99.00

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Ended: Aug-01-07 19:15:00 PDT
Shipping costs: Not specified
Item location: Helendale, California, United States
History: 0 bids


Hotel Unit / 1 Bath


Floating Weeks 18-39, 51-52

Annual Usage

Interval International and
RCI affiliated Resort



Usage- 2007

There will be 2 free weeks given to the new owner free of charge. Weeks are banked with RCI which gives you 3900 resorts to choose from. They will be transfered into new owners account when transfer is complete.


This auction is for a Hotel / 1 Bath Unit, at
The Inn At Silver Lakes, Helendale, California.

mortgage is paid in full

Closing costs and Administrative fees are $199 which include Escrow, Account Search, Preparation of Deed, Recording Fees and resort notification. Closing and Transfer of ownership will be done through Title Outlet, Inc. a licensed, bonded, escrow Title company.

[Vandees Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Vandees]

Had to laugh about Clearlake. Hubby and I are from there; he actually grew up a few blocks from the resort. We will be the first to admit that the area is a toilet bowl. When World Mark started building there, most of us locals thought, who would want to vacation here (especially Nice)?

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

Had to laugh about Clearlake. Hubby and I are from there; he actually grew up a few blocks from the resort. We will be the first to admit that the area is a toilet bowl. When World Mark started building there, most of us locals thought, who would want to vacation here (especially Nice)?

About 20 years ago I consulted with a couple of Clear Lake area water utilities on water treatment. (Yes, they actually "treat" the lake water and distribute it to customers.)

It was, shall we say, among the most challenging water supplies in North American to render potable. From a sanitary standpoint it isn't too bad. The taste and odor of the water is horrendous, particularly east of the Narrows.

***

I too was quite surprised at Trendwest building a resort in a location such as Clearlake; there are many other much more desirable and popular locations than Clearlake.

That was the first time I realized that Trendwest was actually looking for cheap locations to build rather than popular locations.

[JWC Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close JWC]

To the uninformed, Clearlake probably looks pretty good on paper. I wonder what the occupancy is at the WM resort there.

[picklebongo Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close picklebongo]

This is a very informative thread, wish there was one for all the states.

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

To the uninformed, Clearlake probably looks pretty good on paper. I wonder what the occupancy is at the WM resort there.

Clear Lake is legendary among limnologists. I've often wondered how it got the name "Clear". Probably by some developer selling property in the area to unsuspecting souls.

****

Clear Lake is a very old lake geologically, which means it is very fertile for aquatic organisms. Added inputs of nutrients as the basin has developed compounded the situation.

Summer periods - when the solar radiation is most intense - create prolonged and severe blooms of algae and other suspended plants. Probably the most noxious is a variety of algae that is long and stringy, well known for wrapping around the legs and arms of swimmers and waterskiers.

The lake also has luxurious blue-green algea blooms in late summer. The algae species creates the distinctive odor associated with the lake. When the odor is faint it smells a little like freshly mown grass. As it gets more intense it becomes mustier and mustier, and during peak periods is often described as a pigsty odor.

When I would go to visit my client I would begin to smell the algae as I got past Middlletown. By the time I got to the treatment plant in Konocti it would be overwhelming.

The taste also gets into the fish during the peak blooms.

[kapish Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close kapish]

To the uninformed, Clearlake probably looks pretty good on paper. I wonder what the occupancy is at the WM resort there.

Plenty of availability, all year around, including Bonus Time! 1BR, 2BR, 2BR PH and other unit types are available.

[JWC Super Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close JWC]

When I lived in Silicon Valley, I saw listings for homes at Clear Lake and wondered why the prices were so low. When we visited the Clearlake area, it was obvious why real estate was cheap. We saw the World Mark timeshare resort in Nice and our first reaction was one of surprise. Who in their right mind would ever put a resort there.

[JudyS Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close JudyS]

Clear Lake is legendary among limnologists. I've often wondered how it got the name "Clear". Probably by some developer selling property in the area to unsuspecting souls.

****

Clear Lake is a very old lake geologically, which means it is very fertile for aquatic organisms. Added inputs of nutrients as the basin has developed compounded the situation.....

Steve, when you mention "added inputs of nutrients," do you mean naturally occuring, or from human activity?

Here in Michigan, the state and local governments are getting quite pro-active about keeping added phosphates from the water supply. In addition to banning phosphates in detergents, lawn fertilizer is now required to have no phosphate, unless one is establishing a new lawn or can show that one's lawn is phosphate-deficient. There are a variety of other projects for sequestering phosphates, including establishing some wetlands in parks and encouraging homeowners to plant "rain gardens" on their properties to catch run-off.

We still have a problem with too much algae in our water supply, though. Yuck!

[JudyS Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close JudyS]

As a new owner at San Clemente Inn, I'm concerned by the posts saying that it is unattractive. I haven't stayed there, but I did stop in and look at the common areas and facilities. It seemed like an older property, but very well-maintained and with a reasonable number of amenities (pool, mini-golf.)

To the folks who stayed there and didn't like it, would you be willing to take a look at the pictures at the link below, and say whether it looks like the units have been upgraded since your stay?

The San Clemente Inn
(Scroll down to the bottom of the page for the unit pictures)

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

Steve, when you mention "added inputs of nutrients," do you mean naturally occuring, or from human activity?

The fate of all lakes is to become smelly and yucky, eventually fill with sediment to become a swamp, and finally convert to dry land. The only question is how quickly that occurs.

Lakes are natural traps for nutrients in the watershed. Phosphorus, nitrogen, trace metals, etc., that are carried into the lake tend to get captured in the lake and stay there. Those nutrients are used by organisms in the lake and accumulate in the lake biomass. When the organisms die and decompose, the nutrients are released back into the water and combine with new inputs of nutrients to support the next generation of microbes. Over time the total mass of nutrients in the lake ecosystem is always increasing.

When I said that Clear Lake was an old lake geologically, I meant that it was well along the process of becoming a swamp. Before humans arrived in California the lake was already highly eutrophic. In the years since the area was settled by non-aboriginal peoples, there has been an increase in nutrient inputs to the lake. That input has exacerbated conditions, but it's really just an incremental input.

***

In most natural water bodies, the limiting factor for plant and algae growth is either available nitrogen or available phosphorus. And in most cases (including most of eastern North America). phosphorus is the limiting nutrient. In those settings limiting phosphorus input is an effective way of limiting algal growth.

Clear Lake, in contrast, is nitrogen limited. One of the dominant algal species that grows in Clear Lake is a blue-green algae that is able to extract nitrogen directly from the atmosphere. That's the same algae that creates the foul tastes and odors.

During periods of peak solar intensity (June through August) that particular blue-green algae species is limited because it literally kills itself in the sunlight. The algae has gas vacuoles inside the cell that allow it to float right at the surface of the water, so it can float above other plants and algae to get the full input of sunlight. The algae then capture and convert so much sunlight to protoplasm that the algae can't maintain its internal chemical equilibrium - you could say the algae cooks itself to death.

As September arrives, though, the hours of sunlight decrease and the blue-green algae no longer kill themselves. They proliferate at the water surface and capture virtually all of the available sunlight. As they proliferate they contribute their noxious taste and odor to the water. Then, because they block the sunlight from reaching lower levels in the lake, they cause other green algae and plants to die due to lack of sunlight. Those algae and organism then die and start decomposing and rotting . As they decompose they release their nutrients, which further stimulates the blue-green algae growth, perpetuating the cycle.

The blue-greens then totally dominate lake ecology until mid-October, when total available solar radiation drops sufficiently to stop the cycle.

***

Clear Lake is utterly fascinating if you are a limnologist. For most other people, though, there are many better places to enjoy a vacation. And even if every limnologist in the US got a grant to study Clear Lake, there still wouldn't be enough of them to justify building a Worldmark resort in Nice.

[JudyS Senior Member Find all posts View Profile Close JudyS]

That's really interesting Steve, thanks! I didn't know that any algae could fix nitrogen. I also didn't know that nitrogen (rather than phosporus) was the limiting factor in some lakes.

[T. R. Oglodyte Moderator Find all posts View Profile Close T. R. Oglodyte]

That's really interesting Steve, thanks! I didn't know that any algae could fix nitrogen. I also didn't know that nitrogen (rather than phosporus) was the limiting factor in some lakes.

I'm an engineer, not an aquatic biologist. But, IIRC, most species of blue-greens are able to fix nitrogen. Thus, they tend to dominate in lakes that are nitrogen limited. Green algae and rooted plants are more likely to bloom in lakes that are P limited.

****

For the people that operate waste water treatment plants, P is lot trickier to remove than is N.

[Vandees Junior Member Find all posts View Profile Close Vandees]

Thanks from me too, Steve. I wonder what effects the volcano has had on the lake? Growing up, we were told not to eat the fish from the lake due to the high mercury levels.

Laura