“On our arrival on Friday the 28th March everything appeared okay, however around 10:30pm that evening there was a dreadful smell of sewerage from one of the guest bedrooms.”
As it was quite late and the likelihood of getting anyone to attend was minimal, the guest using that bedroom had an uncomfortable night’s sleep on the sofa in the lounge. I called the numbers provided the following morning to report this issue. I then had to follow this call up again later that day, as I had heard nothing back from Sykes. During a ‘third’ chasing call that day to Sykes, I was informed that our contract was not with Sykes but with the owner of the property, who had been ...
As it was quite late and the likelihood of getting anyone to attend was minimal, the guest using that bedroom had an uncomfortable night’s sleep on the sofa in the lounge. I called the numbers provided the following morning to report this issue. I then had to follow this call up again later that day, as I had heard nothing back from Sykes. During a ‘third’ chasing call that day to Sykes, I was informed that our contract was not with Sykes but with the owner of the property, who had been contacted but apparently no response had been given at that time.
During that day, in the ‘welcome folder’ in the property I had found a number (seemingly a late addition written in biro) for the properties ‘handyman’. I called this number and left a message as to the issues we were having, as by now we had also discovered that patio doors to another of the guest bedrooms could not be locked and had been open all night. To his credit the maintenance man called me back within about 15minutes and said he would be on-site in further 15 minutes, which he was. It was discovered that the sewerage smell was down to a ‘trap’ in the shower waste of the bathroom to the bedroom in question which he re-fitted. We also managed to lock the patio doors but only by the maintenance man putting his full weight against the outside of the doors with me forcing the locking handle up internally. Subsequent to this we decided not to open these doors again.
This as you might guess didn’t put me in a great ‘frame of mind’ as I spent a lot of my first day making calls. Subsequently, following the issues that happened on our first evening and the security of the bedroom external doors, small things became more of an issue. These being;
The showers in two of the bedrooms could not be regulated for temperature, one of which was the shower I was using. This meant the temperature of the water was so hot it was only bearable for a really short period of time. Altering the temperature control ‘fully’ in either direction made no difference to the temperature. It suggested that the thermostat had gone on both shower fittings. The temperature would not have been ideal for young children.
The utilities in the kitchen are at best poor. The oven was filthy, the cooking utensils (saucepans etc.) had to be washed before they could be used as they were covered in a film of grease, the dishwasher didn’t have any salt. The freezer needed to be completely defrosted. The door to the balcony off the kitchen also looked to be suffering from the same problem as the one on the ground floor bedroom (i.e) once opened it was very difficult to close and secure. This was disappointing as it meant the balcony could not be used during our stay. There wasn’t a cooking knife that could cut anything, even after trying to sharpen them on a sharpener I managed to find in a drawer.
It all sounds like a real moan but the property for a week was approximately £2k, so I was expecting better things
On the upside this property is superbly located, very spacious with a contemporary feel. The bedrooms were also very comfortable but it needs a serious overhaul of the facilities.
