We've gone on holiday by mistake

[couchparsnip]

I feel like Withnail and I..
It's pouring with rain and we're staying on a farm in a really shoddy barn conversion. The bedroom door doesn't fit the frame so it doesn't shut.
There's no lock on the bathroom door.
The bathroom is accessed through a kid's bedroom so we have to creep through to go in the night and then wake up a grumpy teen to shower in the morning.
Shower goes intermittently cold.
Oven doesn't work and we like to cook.
The double bed was pushed against the wall so we moved it to get access both sides - and the skirting board fell off!
The TV is a wall mounted one but it's not mounted, just resting against the wall.
No bedside table, nowhere to hang clothes and nowhere to eat except on trays(which we had to buy) or an outside patio (see previous grumble about the weather).
There are several electrical violations we can spot - not least the outdoor patio light is powered by an ordinary plug set up outside and getting wetter by the second!
When I mentioned some of this to the owner he said the bathroom door lock was off because someone's kid was 'acoustic' and they had to come off.
We're chalking it up to experience and reporting to the company we booked through.

Anyone had worse. Make me feel better!

It seems sometimes people with holiday rentals/hotels become smug about their location and think that trumps everything, including cleanliness and a workable property.

Hawaii is like this a bit. You pay a fortune for outdated accommodation. But hey, it Hawaii. Hang loose and Aloha and all that.

We also experienced something similar at a hotspring resort. The pools are lovely. Many of the rooms not so much. We arrived, opened the sliding doors facing the lake, closed the screen doors and went to dinner.

On our return two hours later, the room was full, and I mean full, of spiders. Literally dozens of them. They had come in through a gap in the ill-fitting screen door.

I went to the front desk and told them we wanted to move. No dice. And oh, "It's part of the X resort experience."

They did send someone to vacuum up most of them but I didn't sleep a wink.

We had a terrible holiday in Italy 3 or 4 years ago, and it culminated in me moaning on here and discovering there was another utterly appalled and miserable Mumsnetter in a room a couple of doors down the corridor also moaning on here. We met up and spent the next few days together before they were going home. Fantastic family, brilliant fun, and we had a great time. It's now a Mumsnet Classic! www.mumsnet.com/Talk/mumsnet_classics/2994102-Help-Epic-hotel-choice-failure

Bath not plumbed in so first bath caused a flood into downstairs room

Hang on, do you mean there was some sort of leak or that there wasn't a drain at all?

Because what were you supposed to do - empty it with buckets??

@FictionalCharacter

Whatever happens with your refund, please tell the local authority about that illegal electrical installation. Either the farmer did it himself or one of his farmworkers did it. It's really dangerous and if he's forced to put it right, or stop letting it, he won't be putting another family in danger.

Farmers are business owners. He can't play innocent about things like gas and electrical safety and building regulations. As a business the local authority can inspect his premises and it's likely they'd stop him letting it.

I detest these greedy bastards cashing in on people's desperation for a holiday. If they don't give their customers what they've paid for, they don't deserve the money.

Good idea. Would it be planning or building control? I'm not sure they got either! I've looked for the 5 barns on the business rates website and they aren't there.

Weirdly the owner has just messaged via the AirBNB app just the word 'welcome'.
I'm not sure he meant to message me! If he did I wonder what he meant? I'm not sure whether to reply. His last message to me was on lines of 'your complaint is now with AirBNB' so I think I'll leave it!

The spiders. @LoveFall I don't know how you managed! That would have been it for me.

I stayed in a hotel in Birmingham once . Bit worried when there were key codes to each door . I could not settle at all it just felt not right , cold damp and just unfriendly . Then early in the morning all I could hear was sirens so no sleep either .

When I went down to breakfast none of my friends were there and I found myself in the middle of a crime scene . All taped off as there had been a stabbing in the breakfast room . The police then escorted me out .

This was in the days before mobile phones as well so then found myself hunting all the coffee shops on my own to find my friends .

Not the best weekend away

The overflow wasn’t sealed so the water just ran out of the overflow hole into the floor below….apparently all our fault…

I've looked for the 5 barns on the business rates website and they aren't there.

hmm bet he hasn't registered the conversion, but the council tax office can and will back date it, Ince they know about the properties

You have to expect a little wildlife if you stay on a farm - buildings aren't hermetically sealed

A few times in parts of Eastern Europe, we've stayed in some pretty low rent places, with leaky toilets (Thankfully the tank, not the toilet), lots of creepy crawlies and beds like slabs of concrete. Oh, and in Kotor in Montenegro, the water being cut off from 8pm to 8am. But if you're paying €6-12 per night, anything seems to go. In Serbia, we paid €30 a night for a hotel room that was spotlessly clean, huge, view of the equivalent of Trafalgar Square, but very run down. Breakfast was very nice ;-)

Gotta share our worst holiday

We went in the winter(Christmas probably). We arrived to a freezing cold house as the heating wasn’t working.

It wasn’t clean when we arrived crumbs, mud, dust everywhere.
Owners lived next door and they linked through unlocked doors dotted round the house!
Low ceilings ( not too much of a problem)
Doors falling of the cupboard.

The house had its own water system - brown water the colour of coke!
Wasted loads and loads and loads of bottled water from Aldi to drink and to put in the bath!

We left after 1 day when we came back from a day out to find a group of birds had shat all over the house!

Eww disgusting 🤮

went to Brighton recently; what is it with Brighton? it was a nightmare finding a decent place to stay that isn't done up like an art student's weekend on acid - you can't disguise a shit hole with brightly painted walls, it's still a painted shit hole.

I trawled through loads of places and reviews but wish I'd book-marked the review that said .... 'I just couldn't be bothered to fucking argue with them about it .....

Just about anything with a front door and a bed is marketed as 'boutique'. We did find somewhere really nice in the end but I was starting to give up.

Somewhat off topic but is it just me that didn't get Withnail and I? I got bored half way through and stopped watching.

I will never trust Air BNB reviews again after a VERY bad experience last summer… couldn’t even leave a bad review because their system won’t let you… says it all. Be wary.

It’s such a shame, because I’ve also had some really good experiences with Air BNB, both in the UK and abroad… but just don’t trust the company now, since I found out you can’t leave negative, truthful (with pictures as evidenced) reviews

@user1492450936

You have to expect a little wildlife if you stay on a farm - buildings aren't hermetically sealed

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Have yourself a camberwell carrot. That’ll take the edge off.

On the Hawaii theme, we rented a condo on the Big Island for two weeks.

The owner seemed very nice. She sent us a welcome basket even. She had a "take one leave one" policy for supplies in the condo.

When we arrived the place was completely stuffed with toiletries. Etc. we must have had 2 dozen sunscreen bottles, at least that many shampoos etc. The cupboards were jammed.

We got some boxes and cleared a huge load out. I am sure she thought we were awful but really?

We can join in.

8 months pregnant and looking for a cheap holiday on the Isle of Wight. Brand new lodges with hot tubs, we'd had a shitty year, and needed to get away.

Read some reviews about the road leading up to the place needing some attention.

Put in the postcode to the place when the ferry docked, and it was getting dark at this point (winter).

We got to a narrow road and the sat nav said it was down there. It was so hard to see in the dark, so we just trusted the sat nav. As we went further down the pot holes were bad, and this tallied up with the reviews, but then the pot holes became giant ditches filled with water (it was raining hard). We were stuck. Either go back, and not get out, or go forward and hope the massive deep ditches filled with water we could get through. So we went for it.

We called the place but had no reception on mobiles. Thought about walking but it was so bad and 8 months pregnant (plus 2 kids in the car!)

To this day I can still see the front windscreen, the car dipping in and out of the ditches and us all literally praying we'd get through to the other side. This happened for the whole length of this road! Kids were shit scared as was I!

When we got through eventually, we were greeted by the staff at the lodge, who couldn't believe we'd made it through and told us that huge range rovers had to be rescued.

Turns out I didn't read the very very small print that said type in this postcode not this one. Didn't say why though!

Turned out the farmer who lived next door to the lodges, hated the holiday place, and deliberately dug huge ditches so holiday makers couldn't get through. Then when they got stuck, charged them to tow them out!!!!

Car was badly damaged, we were stuck on the holiday place as didn't want to drive the car around as it was, and we couldn't walk to any places. I wanted to talk to the owner, and got very stressed about the meeting.

He was very dismissive about it, and made out it was all our fault. I argued it wasn't clear and if I had a holiday place with an angry farmer next door, I'd warn people! Plus the damage to our car, when we were supposed to have a cheap holiday was horrible.

Rest of holiday was awful.

Long story short, I composed a very well worded letter, and we got a free holiday the following year.

We avoided that road!

I'm sorry, this sounds terrible (especially the electrics), but your account of it, and other people's holiday stories, has had me laughing out loud. I've had my fair share of accommodation disasters over the years as well, including the accommodation I was staying in for a family wedding years ago in Scotland where the bedside lamp attached to the wall was actually live. There was no bulb or warning or on/off switch, just exposed electrics. I found out when I was trying to find out how to turn the damn thing on in the early hours. Good job my hands weren't wet! (It wasn't a cheap hotel, either.)

Oh, on the subject of the weather, it is Wales in August....!!

You need to cover yourselves in Deep Heat and get up against a radiator.

@Marmitemarinaded no - the reviews were very vague, and it's only been a holiday rental since July. It's not on trip advisor or anything, just one holiday cottage website.

@couchparsnip Building control or environmental health - they should be able to put you through to the right office. If he hasn’t registered the properties as a business either, he might be in a bit of trouble.

24yrs ago (the weekend that Princess Diana died) my husband and I took our 2 sons to Butlins Minehead for a week.

We arrived, picked up our keys and went to find our accommodation. I was able to park the car about 25m away and we'd been given the ground floor chalet I'd requested due to my disability, so all was looking OK…. until we opened the door.

The bed linens hadn't been changed and I believe the previous occupants had engaged in lots of 'mummy and daddy' time (you could smell the stale ejaculate the second you opened the front door), there was dirty and broken crockery in the sink, baked beans mashed all over the settee and mud trampled into the bedroom carpets, well, we thought it was mud 🤮

The curtains in the lounge and both bedrooms were only hanging up by about 3 curtain hooks each.

I stomped off back to reception to complain and tried to demand alternative accommodation but they told me they were full to capacity and had nothing else available. We could cancel and go home or they could get us moved to an alternative site - Ayr - flipping Scotland - about as far away as it was possible for them to send us!

With my disability it was impossible for me to drive anywhere else that day (my husband couldn't drive), so we were stranded.

I demanded that a cleaner be sent, with clean bed linen, curtain hooks and sufficient cleaning products to blitz the chalet and said we would be leaving the following day and putting in a complaint to Head Office.

When I got back to the chalet my husband took me into the bathroom, someone had smeared sh*t all over the toilet seat and the underside of the lid and they'd peed in the bath and all up the wall.

Before the cleaner arrived, I went round the chalet taking photographs of all the filth, damage and sheer laziness (a cleaner had clearly not been into this chalet, or they had, had seen the state of it and walked away without touching it). Fortunately, we got a very thorough cleaner, so our stay which actually turned into 2 nights (I had a flare up of my disability symptoms which meant I couldn't drive home on the Sunday) was just about bearable.

We went home and I wrote to Butlins Head Office including the photographs of all the issues we'd discovered. They said that as we had been offered accommodation at an alternate site and that we'd actually stayed 2 nights, they weren't going to compensate us at all.

I fought with them for almost 9 months, at which point they agreed to give me a voucher for the full value of our ruined holiday. I didn't really want/ the voucher because I didn't fancy risking a similar situation again but then a friend went to the Ayr site and came back saying they'd had a wonderful time.

We booked a week, half-board for the end of June (1998). I believe that Head Office had been in touch with the staff in Ayr and told them what we'd been through the previous year because our accommodation was upgraded on arrival and we were given numerous vouchers for drinks on camp, there was a fruit basket and a bottle of champagne in our room and we were treated like royalty by the staff.

We've never been back to Butlins since because we don't want to have our hopes dashed by facing our 1997 experience again but we do remember our Scottish week with great fondness.

@susan123 Locking a fire escape is properly illegal too! I’m guessing you didn’t pack a pair of bolt cutters…… but if the owner won’t take the lock off, the local fire brigade would be happy to oblige, and give the owner a serious bollocking. People get prosecuted for doing this.