“First impression of the property was very disappointing.”
Garden areas, both front and back, were full of weeds (some growing up the doors) and the doors to the outbuildings were rotten and falling off.
The cottage was large with a modern kitchen and bathroom and overall clean and well equipped. However, the decor was very shabby (some disrepair appeared to have arisen from a longstanding damp problem) and the carpet unacceptably stained. Despite the listing stating that this was a no smoking property, there was a very strong smell of stale cigarette ...
Garden areas, both front and back, were full of weeds (some growing up the doors) and the doors to the outbuildings were rotten and falling off.
The cottage was large with a modern kitchen and bathroom and overall clean and well equipped. However, the decor was very shabby (some disrepair appeared to have arisen from a longstanding damp problem) and the carpet unacceptably stained. Despite the listing stating that this was a no smoking property, there was a very strong smell of stale cigarette smoke which was extremely unpleasant. We also thought that there was a 'doggy' smell, despite it having a no dog policy also. Due to these issues, we spent as little time as possible in the property and ate out.
We didn't have any hot water on the first morning so there was no alternative but to have cold showers. My husband rang the landlord and left a message to advise him of the problem. In fairness, he came back quite quickly and said he would try to get a heating engineer out. As we didn't know if this would be possible or how long it would take, it resulted in my husband clearing out a lot of rubbish from one of the outbuildings to access the boiler so he could re-pressure it. I don't know what would have happened if he hadn't been capable of doing this.
It is a shame that we experienced these issues, as it wouldn't take much effort to resolve all of them relatively quickly. The cottage is well positioned for access to the beach, shops, pub, cafe, chip shop, bus stop and train station. In fact, our car wasn't used for the whole week as the public transport was so convenient, cheap and reliable.
