AIBU to expect a decent mattress (holiday-rental related) ?

[albertcamus]

Drove 160 miles, & arrived to holiday accomm yesterday, described in its own brochure as as 'Offering holiday accommodation to people who expect and appreciate high levels of comfort'. 'Bedroom' is 10ins wider than a standard double bed. Mattress (covered by grubby blanket under ill-fitting mattress protector & sheet) is knackered (probably literally): springs broken, 3 ins lower on DH side, as per picture. Tried to make the best of it, but spent the night balancing on my side due to sliding downwards onto DH. Both exhausted & awake aching all over @ 4am. Took mattress off bed & tried to sleep on divan, even worse. Figured that a week of this would leave us both tired and in pain & not be a holiday. Have stayed in vastly more comfortable youth hostels etc. than this. Packed up, wrote letter to (absent on holiday abroad) owners requesting refund. Took key back to housekeeper in next village & requested refund of my (cash only) £265 balance payment & got it without argument. Drove 160 miles back home, disappointed & wondering whether we're entitled to request our £135 deposit back ?

I'm sorry, but for £400 in August, you got exactly as I would expect. I think you are being VU to expect your son to visit you now, and you were lucky to get the balance back so quickly. If you want accommodation worth more than £50 a night during peak holiday season you have to pay more for it. I hope you manage to have a good holiday with your son anyway.

What an odd post SpringCleanish. £400 for a tiny flat or house should still include a reasonable mattress. A reasonable mattress is a minimum requirement.

Springcleanish that's rubbish. A bed should be fit for sleeping on, whatever the cost of the holiday. Broken springs and mattresses that don't fit the frame aren't good enough just because people are on a budget.

Thanks, Morality, that was my original question exactly : was I being unreasonable to expect a mattress in working order or not ?

I am a complete convert to chain hotels. Always clean with decent beds and linen and usually no fuss about changing things or making sure you have what you need. Can't be doing with being at the mercy of someone else's whims.

I am a complete convert to chain hotels. Always clean with decent beds and linen and usually no fuss about changing things or making sure you have what you need. Can't be doing with being at the mercy of someone else's whims.

We've stayed in some really lovely self catering places and are almost always made to feel very welcome. The key is to spend time on research and we usually spend a few hours looking at places online and have rarely felt ripped off.

We often use sites like cottages 4 you and Helpful Holidays. They have reviews on there, loads of pictures and no unpleasant surprises.

How did you find this place op?

yanbu. A decent bed is the very least that you expect.
I really hope you get your deposit back

Thanks, Wild

Fireside : found it through one of those 'cottage owners direct' websites. Never again.

Maybe try an agency type website next time. If there is a next time.

I must admit that we do have slightly more to spend on holiday that when the children were little and we do tend to look for at least 4 star rating out of 5 stars if there is a rating system. Anything that looks like an old people's home or a bit tired goes straight on the reject pile.

We stayed in a lovely 4 bed, 3 bathroom house in Devon in May and it only cost us just over £400 for a week. It obviously wasn't high season, but everything was top quality - La Creuset pans, John Lewis china and bedding, styled to within an inch of it's life, Netfix, wifi. It was amazing.

Worst nights sleep I ever had was in The Grand in Brighton. Very chi chi, very £££ and a bed like a door.

Some absolute nonsense on this thread. A decent mattress is crucial for a good holiday. We let a holiday home and would be mortified if people were unable to sleep on the mattresses. Cost is no indicator on that front - the worst mattress I ever experienced was in a 5 star hotel. We had to move rooms in the middle of the night. I am happy to say that hotel went into administration and closed down so no one else will spend a sleepless night there!

Stayed with friends in a rented cottage in the lakes last year. Big house in need of T LC but very reasonably priced (cheap). The mattress was shot on our bed, really uncomfortable. But for the price we put up with it. And a friend had booked it so didn't want to whinge too much. Luckily only a weekend.

Doesn't help you now, but a good trick with uncomfortable broken mattresses is to put a duvet under the sheet and sleep on that, it makes it bearable.

Horrible to have your holiday disrupted like that but for £400 a week in August I would expect a shithole, sorry. We paid more than twice that (different part of the uk) and the mattress was so luxuriously comfortable that I am considering getting rid of our mattress that is barely 2 years old to upgrade to that standard. You get what you pay for though. Given how dirt-cheap the holiday was, you could have spent £100 on a next day delivery double mattress which granted wouldn't be great quality but even a shitty mattress is comfy for the first week, and still be paying much less than the going rate for an august holiday (and would have a decent chance of also being able to get a partial refund equal to what you spent so not even be out of pocket)

Brilliant suggestion Fish, but what you have to remember is that not everyone has a spare £100 to pay for a new mattress whilst on holiday!

I don't think it unreasonable to expect a decent mattress on the bed wherever you stay and whatever you pay.

Sorry your holiday was spoiled OP

We rent cottages during August, only ever pay between £400 - £500 a week and have never had a shithole - where do people look for these places?
A decent comfortable place to sleep should be standard at any price. Not everyone can pay £1000 for a holiday.

It depends on the location. If you're happy to be in the middle of nowhere like rural Shropshire or Lincolnshire (which can be fantastic) or in an unprepossessing modern bungalow in the outskirts of a seaside town (also can be perfectly lovely) then 400 quid is possible. I'd think it's suspiciously cheap for the Lakes though. But regardless, a mattress should be sleep able.

Worst I ever had was a very smart fairly expensive seaside apartment where all the main bedroom bedding smelled so badly of mildew that I couldn't bring myself to sleep on it. We had to wash everything on the second day, and inevitably the weather wasn't helpful. If there had been a handy local Tesco I'd have replaced the lot with their cheapest sheet and duvet set, which would then have been polycotton which makes me sticky, but at least would not have made me retch. I didn't really complain, which is mad.

Exactly dragons, I don't think £400 was unreasonably cheap given that it was a tiny above-stable-block 'conversion' with a view of a washing line & 5ft headroom throughout.

As long as we could have slept, we would have put up with it, but they'd already tried the 'blankets under the sheet' trick, which was not up to DH's rugby build !

Interesting to learn about variations of bed quality eg The Grand. Having led numerous school trips to Youth Hostels & all over the world, I've never encountered a bed like this.

I wouldn't have been happy and would have complained with a view to having them replace it quickly.

As they were so quick to refund, couldn't they have spend that cash on a new mattress? I can't imagine cutting short a holiday for this reason.

... they'd already tried the 'blankets under the sheet' trick, which was not up to DH's rugby build !

Maybe your DH should have slept on the higher side of the mattress, to weigh it down with his rugby manliness...

Would have done, element, but that side was right against the wall. That mattress had definitely seen some action, though ! Another part of the description says 'ideal honeymoon cottage' lol

We rented a converted gatehouse in Cornwall for New Years a couple of years ago. Boiler failed. We rang the person that owned it only to be told "it's new years, what do you want me to do about it?"
Yes! We know it's new year! We paid a bloody fortune to freeze our bums off in your fecking holiday home!
I'm often annoyed at how so many owners scrimp on things and expect you to pay through the nose. Sharp knives, matching plates, a bed that isn't 50 years old and hot water!! It's not hard you tight fisted meanies!

That's awful MrsT. Did they sort it out / refund you ?

There was a touch of arrogance about this place too, 'put up or shut up' attitude.

I'm loving being @ home now & we're planning a week of eating out instead of the holiday planned

The problem you have, OP, is that you didn't give the owner the chance to sort things out for you, you just left. Cleaner could have contacted owners and had a new mattress for the next day. Which is why I would not refund you any more money.