“Poor directions to property, as owner acknowledged.”
Worst issue heating - 2 storage heaters were turned off when we arrived, so there was no heat available. Heating inadequate at the best of times, but with winter weather coming in, it was hard to keep warm the whole weekend. You enter a downstairs hall, up stairs to an open-plan kitchen - all unheated. The living room and bedroom have one storage heater each, which were turned off. The owner refused to travel to the property to sort this out, as he said it was 2 hours away. He told me I could use the materials in the grate to light a fire, but there was nothing except for 1 log and a box of matches, and no shops open on a Saturday night (or Sunday). A number of phone calls later, in which I had to suggest a remedy, he agreed to contact his maintenance man who then arrived with a small electric heater. This was totally inadequate to heat the living room, and we had to keep it on all night in the bedroom as there was only a summer duvet on the bed and no covers or blankets. Once the storage heaters came on the following morning, we could only stay luke-warm with the extra heater on in the living room, which is a big, lovely room but with a large semi-circular window, in which the opening casement won't close by 1 cm, and there was a gale coming under the room door too. There was no information on the wifi, which I had to find by climbing over the sofa to examine the router (not funny at nearly 70 and awaiting my 2nd hip replacement). The maintenance man told me about the unfixed toilet seat, which he said he had offered to repair some weeks previously but the owner had said he was coming down in a few weeks so not to bother. Altogether unsatisfactory, and although Sykes Cottages have tried to negotiate for reasonable compensation, the owner has offered only a token amount. Throughout all our conversations he tried to blame others, including previous guests. The owner should take responsibility, not just the money.
- Ms Lomax, November 2018
