Mr Mein, August 2020
August 2020
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.