I have just spent 4 days in the filthiest holiday flat in the world, owner is now blaming us, AIBU to want to ruin her life?

[filthyflat]

And I am only slightly joking...

Namechanged to protect the innocent (me!)

Ok, I am presuming that I am not just being overly fussy as the flat was properly filthy, but all the reviews on several rental sites have it as 5 stars and spotlessly clean!!!

When the taxi pulled up outside, i thought it was a bit rundown, but ok, then we ventured inside. it is fair to say it could have done with being redecorated, peeling wall paper etc, but again, we thought ok.... then we went to explore.....

Kids get upstairs slightly before us "muuuuuum, the bin is full of wee!" go up to discover that the bin in the kids room is indeed full of urine...
-every corner of every room has cobwebs
-huge damp patch with flaking paint in one bedroom
-2 overhead lights don't work
-dirt all over the floor
-bins not been emptied since last guest
-doors are all filthy, ingrained dirt, living room door looks like someone sprayed a bottle of coke up it and didn't clean it
-kitchen overhead light fittings were white ceramic, with inches of dust on them
-bathroom was filthy, shampoo bottle left on floor behind sink with inches of dirt clearly hadn't been moved for years (literally)
-in the garden BBQ had been used as an ashtray around 50 cigarette buts floating in stinking dirty water.

Soooo we try to phone the owner, voicemail saying she is (conveniently) out of the country, leave a voicemail to ask her to call asap, also email her. There are no other phone numbers to contact anyone in an emergency.

Try to get somewhere else to stay but there is 8 of us and it's a bank holiday weekend, so the cheapest we can get is about £150 pp per night...so not ideal.

After a while realise we have no choice but to tidy up and stay....thankfully the bedding looked clean. We stayed out all day every day only going home to sleep (which totally added to the cost of our long weekend!)

On our last day a housekeeper arrives as we are leaving, she is roughly 15 and speaks hardly any English, I try to explain the way we found the flat, she giggles, realise we are getting nowhere so leave.

Email owner on arrival home, with all our complaints, she says it all must have been us and we are lucky she is not billing us for specialised cleaning. Says they have never had a complaint before, and to be fair all the reviews of it give 5 stars and say it is spotless (makes me wonder if they are all made up or wonder where the people who think it is spotless live!!!)

I have photos of everything on my phone....Anything I can do?

Who did you rent it through?

i'd contact a newspaper or watchdog, it's disgusting how she blamed you guys for it!!

Name and shame, put up a link and go to town with a review on trip advisor

name and shame, do. and post up the photos on tripadvisor.

www.holiday-rentals.co.uk/ was who I booked it through, but there doesn't seem to be a way to complain through them, unless I am missing it. i have sent a review but I think she can delete them.

She is on trip advisor, but doesn't accept reviews, annoyingly! I have reviewed it on 2 other websites too.

link to the flat, though.

That link takes us to the website not the property.

says it uses this insurance for their holiday lets

Complain and complain some more to the agency.

I have to say even if we had stayed in the flat for a year we couldn't have made it as filthy as we found it, certainly not in 4 days! We left it a million times better than we found it, she should be paying us!!!

This happened to a friend of mine, too. She took photos of everything and then sent them to everywhere the place was advertised, Trading Standards and plastered it all over Facebook.

Name and shame!

And for the love of god,don't book through a agency like that again.

Where the hell is the customer service helpline?

Send a letter to the actuall holiday house itself for the attention of the owner... make it a long one. List everything as you've done here, include photos and explain the whole process of how you tried to contact her again and again.

My folks rent out a holiday home and people are very bad at fessing up when they've left it in a tip and confusion can often happen. It could be that the cleaner hadn't turned up before your visit, the owner needs to know this so she can get a new cleaner.

I personally wouldn't go down the route of naming and shaming just yet, that seems all very childish and malicious, especially as there could be a rational explanation (although don't write the idea off entirely).

Im sure Ive seen that website recommended loads of times on MN, I was thinking of booking through it. I wonder if I should change my mind now.

www.holiday-rentals.co.uk/p421383 is the flat, not the most luxurious obviously but I only expected it to be clean.

I wonder if I could claim anything back on the holiday insurance I have through the bank, or maybe i should have contacted them at the time.

It is the owner I have contacted, she is saying that due to the state we left it in, she should be billing us! We left it in a much better state than we found it! The contract says to leave the house in the condition we found it, so to be fair we could have pissed all over it, sprayed stuff up the walls, not emptied the bins and used furniture as an ashtray and still have left if better than we found it as it was minus the dirt and cobwebs!

I work as a holiday home housekeeper.

The owner visits monthly,calls me weekly and calls the clients during their stay to make sure they are happy and we have inspections from the agency to make sure we are still 5 stars and remaining in the pristine condition as declared on their website.

As I said that 'agency' you booked with claims it has insurance 'Up to £5000 for unrecoverable rental costs if you cannot stay at the property because it was wrongly described on the website; or the owner acted fraudulently'.

I would be making ALOT of noise and making sure I was reimbursed.

Disgusting.

Did you take lots of pictures?

That sounds much better Thingumy, I have booked holiday rentals before, although never from that site, and have always been delighted with them.

I have about 10 photos.

I have just spoken to someone on the holiday rentals website and if i email them the details they will "mediate" so really they will do nothing I presume!

That link is to a house in Greenwich.

Hmm

Ewwww.

I hope you have photos.

Yeah that was the house we were in.

Hmm that's not so good, I didn't even look into the rental company as my dealings were all direct with the owner after the initial email, they are on several other rental sites too.

Yes. The link is to a house in Greenwich.

It was the house in Greenwich (except it's not really Greenwich) we stayed in! It's the right link

It just seems dodgy from the outset.

There is hardly any information or 'help' topics for rental clients on the agency website-it merely states to get in touch with the owner.What happens when you get no joy from the owner?

Piss poor imo.