Holiday Cottage Nightmare

[AuntySandrasDauphinois]

Please can someone tell me what you would do in this situation?

We arrived at our (much anticipated) holiday cottage yesterday to find that it absolutely stinks. I have febreezed every surface so many times and it still stinks. It's worse downstairs but still absolutely awful upstairs, so bad that I struggled to get to sleep last night. We have been out all day today and just got back and honestly I want to cry. More than £1000 we've paid for the week!

I spoke to the woman in the local shop (when I was buying the febreeze!) and she told us some of the local lads had been putting fish through the letterboxes of any known holiday lets. There was nothing to suggest that's what it was but the smell is very fishy/putrid. The village doesn't feel very welcoming to visitors- she also said last year someone had the wing mirrors broken off their car outside overnight!

The Cornish cottage company have been no help whatsoever- the woman laughed down the phone and told us the fish were an urban legend. There's no way to take a photo of the smell to try to claim a reduction. I don't even know if I can last the week. Currently sat in the garden having a glass of wine but I'm dreading having to go inside.

If anyone has any suggestions bar more febreeze please please let me know. I'm trying to be lighthearted about it but I'm devastated. We drove for 6 hours to get here, I'm so exhausted with it.

Exactly.

Exactly.

By the way, you've not "taken anyone's home", you rented for a holiday in good faith. Lesson learned about Cornwall, though.
I last went five years ago, it wasn't pleasant. I didn't know if it was racism - I'm white, my husband and children are not, or of it was a tourist thing, or just bad manners. Shame.

Once they have your money,they don't care.
In one cottage the ground floor flooded with sewerage all our boots and shoes ruined,holiday company said WE must have blocked the toilet!when plumber turned up he said her been out several times and warned the owner the drains needed clearing but she wouldn't pay for it.
Another one was absolutely riddled with hundreds of insects and it was so filthy we had to bleach everything ,owner said it was out fault but the day we arrived the fridge was filled with yellow stains and a lot of black hair.it was disgusting,cutlery draw filled with dirt and cutlery used and replaced without washing.yuk.
Go home and demand a refund,if you stay they won't return your money.
Holiday cottage agents of second one said they would she if I posted photos,they were so bad.

Both will be contributing factors. Doesn't help all the air b&b adds saying you can get more money renting out as an air b&b than tenents who wreck the property. That's not always the case.

If the letting agent won't help you could try calling the Council's Environmental Health and/or a councillor for that area? You might have more luck with a speedy response from the latter.

Two points:
We live in a touristy area with lack of local housing, for all the reasons people have brought up in this thread. However, the tourists who are friendly, respect the local area and wildlife and frequent local businesses are on the whole welcomed. The arrogant entitled ones meet hostility. It's not you, OP. Just smile and be friendly to the locals and they will (usually) engage positively with you.
Second point: don't go buying air fresheners, but lay siege to the agents, in person if you can. Threaten them with Environmental health, Watchdog, the local and national press. They will suppress reviews on their own site. However you can bombard their FB and twitter accounts and trip advisor making sure you show a photo of the cottage and people realise which cottage it is and where, even if you don't feel you can name the actual cottage. Give them hell

Ah yes—this is a very good point!

Is there a vacuum cleaner? If you use bicarb of soda like shake and vac so pour on, wait 15mins and hoover up that is amazing at absorbing smells and it's cheap.

as others have said, don't stop insisting. This is the kind of bad publicity that the owners of the cottage should not want to appear in the local press or even the Daily Fail. I hope you get it sorted, and sadly, this is the kind of story that puts me off from renting holiday cottages or AirBnBs. You just never know what you are going to find

Don't do ANYTHING to get rid of the smell OP. You'll be more out of pocket and you want someone else to smell it!

Gosh i really feel for the OP. There's loads of good practical advice here but imagine waking up having to deal with this instead of just going out for the day with your sarnies :(

I keep wondering how she's getting on!

Out of interest , what would you advise when it comes to staying somewhere that doesn't destroy 'communities and culture'

Are we talking exclusively Hotels , BnB's and guest houses?

As people have said, the people that have started this are locals selling their houses to second home buyers, or who have turned them into air BnB's.

The last people to blame are tourists, who simply come to spend money in your local economy.

The last people to blame are tourists, who simply come to spend money in your local economy.

Exactly. I have never known anyone refuse to take our money in the shops in tourist areas!!!

Any update? I hope you stood strong and demanded they send someone out.

insist the company come for an inspection and move you. Family member of mine managed a letting business. He's had to move people on due to complaints all the time.

I would say the fish is bullshit though. As much locals (including myself) get frustrated with holiday let's, I can't imagine any of us would do that. But maybe I'm wrong 🤷‍♀️

You need to push this OP, not spend what is supposed to be your holiday money on mitigation!

As for the bigger question about tourist areas. It's a massive problem that has only become bigger. So many landlords have been evicting tennants where I live so that they can make more money with holiday lets. What has now happened is local businesses generally operating a seven day week are beginning to be now opening 4/5 days a week because they don't have enough staff. Partly because of lack of accommodation, partly because the vast majority of jobs are minimum wage or close to it.

Potential staff have nowhere to rent because of holiday lets, which has compounded the problem that was already here of second homes. So many places in this area are now shells with no permanent residents. Depopulation of younger people is a massive, massive problem. People coming here to retire is also an issue. The census revealed that nearly 1/3 of the local population is over 65! It's all very unsustainable long term.

Young people leave because the focus is so solidly on tourism, it's pretty much been the main source of employment for years. Young people go to uni and most don't come back because they don't want to work in hospitality.

I don't like the attitude that traditional tourist places should be grateful for tourist footfall and should shut up and put up with an inflated housing market, a low wage economy and few real occupational options.

I don’t know what you expect people to do, when they also need to buy another house ? Sometimes houses are sold here at a lowered price to local people. This happens more when a house has been inherited. This is not an affluent area, and the difference between what is affordable for someone who can afford a second home, or to sell up in the SE and move here, and what someone who works locally can afford, is huge.
Also, sadly but predictably , people lie. They say they are buying a home to live in, but that house is often on Airbnb a few months later.
Blaming the people who need to buy a home, rather than addressing the need for a more sustainable and non exploitative holiday industry is shocking to me, when I am living through the damage done here, and with people who can’t any longer afford a home at all, never mind a second one. Here we are also a different ethnic group with our own language and culture.
All I am asking is that when choosing where to stay on holiday, you factor in the damage that can be done and choose accordingly. Stay in someone’s converted annexe, or camp, or use a little Hotel. You can still have a lovely holiday.

Holidays. I don't know what the answer is.
But I wonder if the posters here talking about the effects of tourism in their area can hand on heart say their own holidays are totally free of any detriment to that locality? Here or abroad. Do they reseach before they go? Effects on wildlife? Effects on local housing. Effects on local ecology? Water sources? ect.

The days of the little family, who drive their camper van to farmer Giles's field each year (they pay him a crisp fiver for the full 2 nights!) and do nothing but sit on a blanket with a flask and a game of cards and then go home again is long gone.

Everyone wants to go somewhere and i would guess that 90% of the time it does some harm, somehow each time.

And I include myself in that by the way!

Where i live the children can't afford to buy a house either. I blame the economy, not visitors to the area.

I think that's a very good point, @Laiste we can also think of the impact of tourists on Spain and Turkey, for example, all the extra flying as well.
I genuinely feel sorry for people priced out in Cornwall and Wales, but it's surely up to the local MPs to act - also local authorities.

As people have said, the people that have started this are locals selling their houses to second home buyers, or who have turned them into air BnB's.

You're absolutely right, this is one part of the problem. A relative of mine sold a house last year they were renting out. It was bought by a couple who live in a city and who'll use it as a second home. So that's another place taken out of circulation. Relative couldn't give a fuck.

In the distant past, a lot of locals selling to second home owners would find it hilarious that their buyers would be paying "over the odds" for houses. I'm pretty sure Council Tax used to be half for second home owners as well because the people weren't there all the time. Lack of thinking about the inevitable consequences is partly to blame. And not enough legislation put in place to stop such an imbalance happening too.

The actual tourists booking lets, staying in hotels/B&Bs, coming for the day for a nice time deserve to have a nice holiday. They're just enjoying (or trying to enjoy) a nice area.

The air B and B business has got out of hand though. What started as a lovely, ‘ethical’ idea of people couch serving or staying in a spare room has grown out of proportion and the market is saturated with people charging exorbitant prices off the back of the pandemic, many folk have got greedy knowing holidays abroad were tricky, if not impossible. We had no air b and be in the village where we live but in the last 2 years there are now five. One charges up to £2000 a week to stay in it. Many cities and also countries (Germany) are bring in laws and policing the explosion of Air b and b properties because of the problem lack of rentals for the folk that actually live there ( along with other issues). Yes, the economy is a contributing factor but holiday lettings are a big problem and they need to be properly regulated.

If this hasn't yet been resolved find a local person of good standing in the community, such as a priest, councillor, even mayor. Ask them to visit for 5 minutes and then to put in writing what they smell.

You can't take photos of a smell but this way you can record it.

You can get a vinegar laundry spray in home bargain's. Just if you think it's causing your clothes to smell. You can spray it on your clothes before leaving the house. It's only about 80p.