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!

@cooldarkroom

Invite him to turn the outside light on, in the rain... just to see if it works

He is a farmer. They are mostly a different breed. He will be fine and also probably wearing industrial safety wellingtons. His hair might look a little like Father Jack's afterwards though.

@couchparsnip

The person who made the recommendation is my oldest dearest friend. They stayed in the neighbouring property which they say is much better! Apparently the farmer did up this place really quickly to make more cash. It shows! We had no hot water this morning so I complained a lot. It's fixed now but we've been offered our money back if we want to leave. We would have to do it via AirBnB so I am wary...

My advice would be to take loads of photographs of the place, the issues that you have already highlighted to us and probably others that you haven't. Leave and demand a refund via AirBnB. have your evidence ready

It's not ready for guests. Clearly.

Try and find somewhere else for a break.

For DH's 50th we booked a "luxury" farmhouse in Devon for 12 of us. Luxury my arse - it was tired, grubby and half of the kitchen had been ripped out for some reason. There weren't enough seats in the living room; we had upset stomachs from the spring water; had a water leak through the kitchen ceiling and only 3 people a day could shower as the hot water ran out and the toilets kept backing up. The company we booked through weren't as "Helpful" as their trading name suggested, and after months of wrangling and reporting to Environmental Health, they gave us a voucher off a future holiday. I was so angry that I ripped it in half and posted it back to them!

Keep a diary - this will make a fab TV show or play, that's how Fawlty Towers started.

Get a delivery of nice food and drink and and picnic watching the rain.

The Camberwell Carrot!

Our worst was a 17th century cottage in the middle of nowhere up a rutted path which would have been lovely in the sunshine, but we had a week with pissing rain which came in through all the original windows. Also all the towels smelled of mildew and while we could wash them we couldn’t get them dry due to aforementioned pissing rain.

The other major holiday fail was a lovely cottage whose USPs were an Aga and a suntrap conservatory over the front half of the house (the back half was against a cliff). Fine except that we went in one of the strongest heatwaves of the last five years and it was 30 degrees plus all week. Absolute hell.

And my favourite quote - perhaps appropriate in your case -

'The sky is looking bruised - we must return homeward'

@couchparsnip

We are near Southport in Merseyside. Never been before but looks lovely so far!

Get your fish and chips from Fylde Fish Bar in Curchtown. And a pink and white ice cream from Rossi’s on Nevill St. Take the kids to the squirrel woods at Formby. There’s a Waitrose, Tesco , Starbucks and Maccies in Formby too.

We have had similar, looking back, at home and abroad, although I'm much more careful when booking these days with DC.

We once discovered - because things kept moving and we eventually realised and asked - that the owner had been letting themselves in to our holiday cottage every day while we were out, apparently to 'empty the electricity meter.' What, every day? And why were our things being touched?

We have also had two 'interesting' holiday cottage experiences involving CCTV. In one, I off'ed the wifi at night as we do at home only to be almost immediately contacted by the put out owner, who lived some miles away, because it had stopped him watching the cottage on his CCTV. He said it was needed 'for insurance purposes' and so we must leave the wifi on 24/7. There was really nothing there to steal. In the second, the owner lived in a large house in the grounds of the holiday cottage. He insisted on showing us all around his house the day before we left, and as we went into his bedroom saw our cottage up close and personal on a huge TV screen he watched from his bed. Again, there was really nothing worth stealing in our basic cottage - we had booked them both for the location. On both occasions, the owners claimed it was for security reasons, but it felt like an invasion of privacy, intrusive and quite creepy.

The owners kept wanting to engage with us which I find annoying on holiday.

That happened to us. The way the cottages (two - other one was empty at the time) and owners house were located meant that every time we went out/came back the owner could see us and would want to chat to us. An odd time would be friendly but it was every time.
She also went into the cottage when we were out and at around 8am on our last morning as we were trying to get ourselves and ds ready for the day and load the car she marched in to get the bedding as she needed to wash it for the next guests. Leaving deadline was 10am so we were not late!

It was a shame as it was a lovely property but we had discovered the owner had made opening the two cottages to a project due to a bereavement and she really couldn't separate that from running them as a business.

We stayed somewhere where the owners had just relocated elsewhere, leaving the house exactly as they had lived in it - photos on the wall, graduation certificates propped up, clothes in wardrobes, lots of books and video tapes everywhere..
There was even an ancient VHS player with a video inside it.
It wasn't bad but we had the distinct feeling we were squatting all week.

@MrsMackesy that’s awful was the cctv on the outside or inside..?

@TenThousandSpoons

You need the finest wines known to humanity, and you need them now!

Someone beat me to it!

As a child, our second ever family holiday not staying with relatives was in a cottage in North Wales. This was 1969 and I was 8.

We arrived to find the owner was living in the living room. We had the rest of the cottage (reasonable sized kitchen, dining room and two bedrooms) but she obviously (things moved) came out and used the bathroom and kitchen during the day when we were out. If we made too much noise, she banged on the living room door. We spent the whole week creeping around and out as much as possible.

My parents had booked it by post from a booklet (pre-internet and no phone at the cottage) and eventually plucked up the courage to show the owner the brochure and say they were surprised because they had assumed the whole cottage was to let. The lady said that it was as advertised ie. 2 × receptionrooms and 2 x bedrooms, and nowhere said 'sole use'.

Weird.

@MyDogTails

We stayed somewhere where the owners had just relocated elsewhere, leaving the house exactly as they had lived in it - photos on the wall, graduation certificates propped up, clothes in wardrobes, lots of books and video tapes everywhere.. There was even an ancient VHS player with a video inside it. It wasn't bad but we had the distinct feeling we were squatting all week.

We've had that a couple of times, but in those cases, the owner hadn't "moved out" at all. For one, it was in Torquay and the owners simply moved into a B&B for the Summer so they could rent out their house to make money. The guy turned up every morning to water the garden, cut the grass, prune the shrubs, or spend the morning in the workshop in his garage! They "kindly" emptied a few cupboards, drawers and a wardrobe for guests, but most of the drawers were full of their stuff, including drawers of their underwear in the bedroom.

For the other, they had a "main house" with an annexe in the garden, and moved between them depending on which one was rented out that week, again, leaving the main house with all their stuff, including loads of food in the kitchen cupboards and fridge/freezer with "do not touch" stickers on them.

Such people really need to be "outed" so that their paying guests don't have to put up with it. This was a few years ago, but I suspect it's happening a lot this Summer due to covid and people staying in the UK. Rather than rejuvenating the UK holiday industry, I think staycations could have the opposite effect and people will just run to the airports for next Summer.

@Scarby9 that's awful but actually, we had a similar experience on a family holiday. In a city renowned for its prestigious university, we had a house booked close to the centre and all amenities (all good). Only problem was that when we arrived there was still a student in residence (legitimately) but who wants young teens sharing a house with random unknowns!? We vacated the house pretty sharpish - not sure if parents ever got their money back.

In the pre 'internet' age when holiday rentals were advertised in places like The Lady, I should imagine such 'untoward holiday lets' were quite commonplace.

First inkling something was wrong was when we had to drive through a waterfall to reach it.

I love the idea of driving through a waterfall to get to my cottage! Arran, you say......

I'll take your Withnail and I holiday and raise you our Deliverance holiday!

We booked a trip around the American West, which had very variable accomodation. Most of which was either great or functional and adequate.

However there was one leg of the trip where the accomodation was like something from a horror film.

It started with a very long windy deserted road that wound higher and higher up a mountain. We thought we must have taken a wrong turn but couldn't find anywhere to turn around so we had to carry on, and eventually we came to the place, complete with a dodgy broken sign.

We drove in and the cabins in the woods were like something from deliverance. Red necks cooking over fire pits stared at us. I saw more guns in those few minutes than ever before in my life. We stuck out like a sore thumb as foreign tourists.

We checked in and were directed to our accomodation but weren't given a key. Thinking maybe the key would be in the door we went to check it out. The "cabin" was awful, grotty, rickety, unclean. The fire pits were the only means of cooking. The main door was a flimsy screen door with no obvious way of locking it. When we queried the security the owner seemed to think we were bonkers for wanting to lock the door and got quite agitated.

There was no mobile phone signal and no phone in the "cabin" just a payphone in the "reception". So having decided that staying there was likely to result in fleas, robbery, rape, murder or any combination thereof we drove back down the mountain to try to find alternative accommodation or a phone to speak to the travel agent.

We did eventually find alternative accommodation in a perfectly normal motel. And when we told the cabin people we weren't going back they yelled at us down the phone. We didn't get a refund but considered it was probably a lucky escape.

@Shedbuilder I assumed he meant the gas bottle for the gas oven. Lots of farms near us aren’t on mains gas so use bottled gas.

@Mischance did you at least get a refund?

Anyone hearing a banjo now

@ineedaholidaynow

Anyone hearing a banjo now

NingaNingNingNingNingNing... 🎸 🎵 🎶 🤣😁

Definitely report to the agency you booked it through. The owner is ripping people off.

Cake and fine wine! 😁

A relative lets out his house, in an area with short seasonal demand, via AirBnB. When it's let he and his DP and Dc move into a caravan in the garden.