Dirty holiday cottage - what would you do?

[Holidaynamechanger]

We are on holiday, on arrival the cottage was not very clean, late on Friday night, bathroom was the worst, manky, hair, pubic hair 🤮, grime, new soap placed on a dirty soap dish, toothbrush holder disgusting.

Tried phoning the office but they had gone home, so I took photos, emailed them, bought some bleach and cleaning products and cleaned! Fab (not) but I wasn’t prepared to live in the grime and DC didn’t want to take a shower.

Fast forward to today, no response by noon so I went into the office where I was advised that it wasn’t the woman’s department and someone from x department would be in touch.

They have been in touch to offer a deep clean, I don’t really want my holiday disrupted by a deep clean tomorrow and at that point I only have two days left.

I have said that I would like the money I paid for an end of let clean returned to me at the very least. No response.

What would you do? I don’t want someone in this very tiny cottage cleaning. I don’t want to have to go out if we fancy a lazy morning tomorrow and it is raining.

Not sure what I want really but I am still slightly pissed off. Example of dirt attached.

Report to the local council environmental health department, as a holiday cottage they should have a level of cleanliness which they should be achieving and they clearly aren't.

I just left a holiday cottage 2 days early because it wasn’t clean and it smelt terrible I wasn’t willing to let someone deep clean around me either or as suggested go out for the day at my expense. They offered an upgrade at my expense at this point I lost it I was not polite with the customer service agent The terms and conditions basically said nothing was their fault and they were not responsible for anything. I put it on their social media pages, amazingly I got a 50% refund and a voucher for £100 as a goodwill gesture.

That really is disgusting. Glad they gave you some money.

I own a holiday cottage and would be SO ashamed if my house was like that. The problem is, at this time of year, owners often can't see their houses because they are booked up.

In your position I think you as the holidaymaker should be able to specify the time the clean takes place, its not on to expect you to be inconvenienced. You could leave the keys in the key safe or the cleaners would bring their own keys, you shouldn't be expected to wait in!

However 'cleaner failure' is the same as 'electrics failure' or 'cooker failure' for an owner. If it happens you have to be able to fix it whilst the holidaymakers are there.

Last week our smoke alarm became faulty and went off intermittently through the night. I had to send someone in to fix it.