“Before we left we had an opportunity to speak to the landlord about the cleanliness of the property which we felt was sub-standard.”
The landlady gave an explanation as to why the property was not as clean as it should have been and we accepted that some of the issues were down to poor management however, simply getting someone from the village with little experience of cleaning demonstrates that the landlords may not hold cleaning with a very high regard.
Our first impression of the cottage was fine and what we were expecting from the online images.
Upon settling in it became clear that this cottage has been fitted out without the holiday maker in mind.
'En-suite' is a creative way to describe a shower in a room. No hand basin and no toilet to complete the en-suite and no door to the 'en-suite' which made privacy an issue.
There was a washing machine but no tumble drier. Admittedly, a tumble drier was not listed and I will be more careful next time but, it should be noted, that when you are on holiday, it's not acceptable that you have to wait three days for you clothes to dry - you need your clothes straight away if you have purposefully travelled light.
Neither is it great that the oven and hob did not have any instructions so it took ages to work out how to get them to the right temperature. This was another feature that wasted our time. We were on holiday, we expected everything to be easy to use and quick to use so that we could get out and do what we wanted to do rather than wait ages for things to cook.
There was chipped crockery in the cupboards, some of the pots and pans didn't feel clean.
The towels and bath mats were very worn and shabby.
The bedroom furniture in the twin room was broken.
The downstairs toilet didn't have a light switch. We had to take the bulb out to turn the light off.
The ground outside the front door isn't level so you're always greeted with a big puddle when leaving and returning to the house if it rains.
To us this looked like a property that was fitted out years ago and had never been revisited. Everything was shabby around the edges and not the country cottage image that we were looking forward to.
Whilst discussing the cleaning issues with the landlady we felt some embarrassment for her but, on reflection, most of the issues were unrelated to cleaning immediately prior to our arrival. Most of the dust and dirt looked to be very historic.
It didn't ruin our holiday as we spent most of our days out of the property but, with only one holiday each year, we kind of expect to stay somewhere that is nicer than our own house. This wasn't the case with this cottage.
Stillington is a lovely village to stay in and we visited the pubs and the Indian in the village all of which offered very good service.
With regards to publishing this feedback - I don't mind, I'll leave it to Sykes to decide how useful they think it would be for other visitors.
Upon reading the review and speaking to the guests we were initially very shocked due to having no complaints during the whole 10 years we have been letting this property through Sykes. We feel as though this portrayal of our property, however, doesn't truly reflect the high standard we uphold,for example the upkeep of the cottage is always up to the highest of standards as the cleanliness and facilities are checked weekly. Not by someone with little experience but by our locally trusted and reliable cleaner as well as myself and has often been praised by guests so the report of ˜historic" dirt thoroughly confused us and by the wording we can only guess that this refers to
the period features in the 200 year old building itself. Although if this isn't seen to be satisfactory by guests we can only attempt to address the issue, however we would expect the holiday makers to approach us with this at the beginning of their stay rather than learn of them upon their departure when it seems too late to rectify any problems. On another note outdoor puddles can only be expected from such a home in the Yorkshire countryside where again we can't control the weather and guests should pack for any changes, as with any country home in England. The problem raised about the En-suite is something we can't change as the cottage is designed with a rather open plan layout to save on space and to make the general flow of the property and your stay more comfortable. It is true the master bedroom only has a fitted shower however the family bathroom is just across the landing with an extra toilet downstairs. And to address another issue raised, this does have a light switch and although in an unorthodox place is clearly marked and we would've been happy to point this out. Yet the master bedroom, and both bathrooms have locks fitted so privacy is an issue for our guests. The ˜shabby"appearance of the property is something we can rectify though such as the bathmats and towels, as with pans and crockery. But upon the arrival of the guests no plates were chipped nor upon their exit from the property. As aforementioned the whole house is checked weekly and anything that could impact the appearance of the property is replaced so we shall look into this and replace such kitchenware. The cooker and hob are again issues we shall address but in the welcome pack it clearly says the location of the instructions and yet again we didn't know about this until the very end of the guests stay so can't do much for these particular customers but is something we can tell future guests about as with the tumble drier,although this is stated upon the website and there is a clothes line outside but this was of course affected by the weather. We can only be thankful such minor issues didn't spoil the guests stay but as with any period property there are always minor quirks so we can only apologise that the property didn't meet expectations for these particular guests.
Sykes owner relations