“Kitchen full of bluebottle flies on arrival had to get rid of them only kept ...”
Kitchen full of bluebottle flies on arrival had to get rid of them only kept returning The Cottage was overpowering with smell of fousty in every room Television could not get to work despite going through the instructions after 2 hours gave up txt the owner got no reply My husband slept in the single bed due to not sleeping very well The bed and bedding were damp and lampshade was full of cobwebs with dead fly on it in the morning the smell was so bad we left the cottage so only stayed 1 night so had to find a B@B in Barnstable costing more money until Weds I can not describe the damp smell it was awful Terrible experience and wasted money
Thank you for your review. I am rather astonished at your comments about our cottage. We had actually been staying in the cottage for a few days just before your arrival. So having deep cleaned the cottage on the morning before you arrived, there were no flies that we can recall, let alone a kitchen full of them! I have also contacted our cleaner, who found no evidence of this problem cited when you had left. uHaving high standards ourselves, we always clean the cottage above and beyond: I had even dusted lightbulbs, let alone the lamps, so I am somewhat surprised that in a few hours after leaving, that cobwebs were lurking.
With regards to smelling fusty, the cottage was well ventilated when we stayed and we had heated it throughout, with the log burner alight each of the four days we were there, so the cottage would have been fresh and dry when you arrived. Bedding had been refreshed by the cleaner only a few days before and when I stripped the bed to put on our own duvet and sheets on (we have our own to use), the guest duvet and sheets were fully aired and had been stored in the spare room, which is also dry and well ventilated. There is no way these were damp! We would not have made the bed up with these if this had been the case.
We take absolute pride in making sure the cottage is really clean and well cared for. After having this as our holiday home for 22 years, we are invested in making sure it stays clean, comfortable and homely, not only for ourselves as we still regularly use it, but also we want our guests to enjoy the ambience and homeliness of the cottage, and the village of Lee itself, having spent so much time there ourselves.
At no time did you raise any of these issues with Sykes and you would need to follow their policies should you rent from them in the future. In addition, we also sent you a welcome text, which is our standard practice as we like to be available for our guests should problems arise, so you had direct contact with us at all times. None of these points in your review were raised with ourselves. In fact, you did message me after the first night of being there and I quote, “ Hi X, cottage is lovely but I can get the telly to work but I can’t find normal TV…”.
The only area of your review we accept, is that using the television can be difficult if you are not use to using apps. With Freeview, we cannot get ITV live so changed to a box where ITV X and BBC I player are available, as well as many other channels that are popular today such as Netflix, Amazon Prime, channel 5 and so on. This gives our guests a greater range of television to watch. We apologise for not responding to your 08 47 text on the Monday morning, this is unusual for us, but at the time, my father was in hospital and this has been a very demanding time. We usually respond to texts and calls as soon as we see them. Also, my husband’s mobile number is also in our comprehensive guest book and you had not contacted this number either.
I can only feel sorry that you felt your experience was “terrible and a waste of money”. This is not the general feedback we have had from the reviews here and from the reviews made in our guest book.
Property Owner