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.

Fish is so expensive as well - don’t these kids have better things to do? 🤣

But it's pushing the pricees up and first time buyers have no chance of getting on the property ladder.

Don't you just love these greedy landlords who charge extortionate rent and admin fees and don't bother to carry out much needed maintenance work who brag about they're property portfolio (not).

It's the same people who can't afford to buy are having to rent off greedy landlords. So they're making money off the poor. Do you think that's fair?

Hi All, some thoughts on tourism from someone who lives in a tourist hot spot.

Jobs. No, tourism doesn’t support much in the way of high-quality jobs, the majority are seasonal and living wage at best. Summer income is rarely enough to see people through the winter.

Housing. The massive demand generated by Air BnB has severely impacted the availability of affordable housing. Yes, government policy is way behind the curve but it is demand that is the biggest driver. In my parish there are 2500 permanent residents, over 380 whole house AirBnBs and precisely zero properties of any kind for long term let. Local families are getting section 21s and have nowhere to move to. @Rosehugger yes you probably are depriving someone of a home, don’t try blaming others.

Cash Flow. Few holiday cottages are locally owned, none of the big holiday sites are locally owned, some aren’t even UK owned. The vast majority of cash spent in the region either goes straight out again or into the pockets of a few wealthy individuals

Culture/Attitude. For many locals the difference in attitude from tourists can be pretty astonishing, inconsiderate and dangerous driving and parking, the attitude that having paid for a holiday all locals owe tourists some debt of gratitude. No concept of community and that tourists are guests in that community.

It is probably the few such as @Laiste @Alexandra2001 that give the many a bad reputation and I am not condoning any acts against tourists but if tourists acted as respectful guests rather than entitled CFs there may well be less local resentment.

I hope you get things sorted @AuntySandrasDauphinois

I was specifically thinking of the billionaires that own acres of Mayfair and other prestigious address that could house many people. Think in the same league as the oligarchs that have recently had their assets frozen (possibly) due to the war in Ukraine. See also Middle Eastern countries with bad human rights records. Property hoarding plus!

@Charlieiscool what makes you thin the landlord is local?

I would quite like to add that tourists do seem to shit everywhere. The amount of human waste found in carparks and on sand dunes is astonishing.

it’s only an issue during Summer / Holiday season.

but finding a giant fatty shit in the beach carpark isn’t uncommon for us.

Now I know most MN users aren’t feral outdoor shitters - BUT you do have to admit it’s an issue and not a very nice one.

We used to have hikers piss against my fence while walking the coast path. Because it was a nice sheltered nook from the Atlantic winds. Stopped their tiny little cocks from shrivelling up anymore than it already was - and the piss smelt revolting as it dried in the hot sunshine.

Over and over again. Men with big porky sunburnt bellies.

@Dylanesque No, most of the property owners are from up country not locals.

@Daftasabroom whoa! where i have given anyone a bad name? i 'm telling you what a lot of people really think down here.

So a nearby hotelier bought a house as a holiday let and boasted about it on FB, they got slaughtered, very heated and very angry.

People are pissedoff being treated like muppets by out of town speculators who are buying up property for profit.

I was born in London and lived the first few years of my life in Kensington - there is absolutely no way, short of winning the lottery, that I'd ever be able to live there. Then again I've never earned anywhere near the 'median' wage either.

I'm hoping that the OP has had some resolution now. If not then I echo all the posters that have mentioned reviews. Bad reviews can kill a business.

👏👏👏

How can a buyer stipulate that it has to be lived in by the new owners rather than rented out? Is it even possible?

I suppose a covenant could be put upon it, but even covenants can be cancelled/ignored if the person who set up the covenant is no longer around to enforce it.

@cornishandbored22 Yes seen all of that down here too, not overly bothered about weeing, rain washes it away (usually) & after all we have voted to close down public loo's but the shitting and nappy waste just dumped - gross.

As you say, it only happens in the summer when the tourists arrive.

I'd like to have a tourist tax, say £1.50 per night per person, put this toward the damage they do and pay for better facilities, works well in Europe & might reduce numbers to sustainable levels.

So this property hasn't been previously let out to holiday makers for a few weeks before your stay - if it smells so bad, action has not been taken, no worrying reviews... the holiday company sound unprofessional and a bit useless - again you would expect some poor reviews if they are that bad. Making the South West sound like the Wild West OP- not nice

It's not just about second home owners though. Our holiday home (not in Cornwall) was already out of the reach of most locals when we bought it. Most of the jobs in rural/tourist areas are seasonal, zero hours and/or MW - none of which are attractive to a mortgage lender.

I am not saying that the buyers of second homes don't have some responsibility here - clearly they do - but there is a much bigger picture. The downward pressure on house prices in these areas if holiday homes were not allowed would still not be sufficient to make them affordable on an average income, same as the rest of the country. And even if, by some miracle, they fell to a low enough level, it won't necessarily make the would-be buyers attractive borrowers. The entire system is buggered.

FWIW I grew up in rural Buckinghamshire and cannot afford a pot to piss in within spitting distance of my old village. Ironically it's much less desirable than it was then, because HS2 goes straight through the middle of it.

Why are posters derailing this thread, does the OP not deserve to go away (and in this country too)?

You'd change the rules on taxation and planning permission to make buying property for holiday lets unprofitable.
Plus changing rules on developments, builders are getting PP, with say 10% affordable (debatable if 240k is affordable) then saying they wont build these and getting the council to reapprove.

But what the Government and Cornwall Council are doing is to build build and build housing anyone can buy and then let out, no infrastructure requirements, no health facilities and destroying the very thing people come here for.

Its destroying Cornwall and turning it into a Cornish version of Middlesex.

OP is deffo allowed a holiday (just like how Cornish people are allowed holidays too!)

🤣 such a weird thing to say.

unless people assume that the Cornish people never go on holiday themselves?

People lie my mum's house had it specified with the estate agents she wanted it to go to a family. It's a popular area with families with a mixture of Victorian terrace's and and semi's. The majority of home's used to be owned but not the case anymore.

There are good local schools and park's nearby and shop's nearby. It would have been a great first home for a couple or young family.

They turned up with his wife and kids and let on it would be a family home. It wasn't as she had friends still living in the street who told her.

They ripped out the beautiful marble Victorian fireplace and sold it. They also let it to 3 lads who liked to throw all night parties. But he rented out each room indivdually and they shared the downstairs living space. Because he can get more money doing that.

In my town in France, the new developments have clauses where only the owners can only live in it & you can't rent for 9 years, & if you sell on the same rule applies. There are spot checks.

There are rules in switzerland also where certain regions/zones are only sold to locals.

Apologies @Alexandra2001 I might have attributed a nested comment to you.

@Strictlyfanoftenyears does the OPs right to a few weeks away trump the right of others to a sustainable community and long term affordable housing?

That's the way it should be.

Sorry to hear about your stinky holiday home OP. Im in SE Cornwall (local, not a 2nd home owner!). If you're near by and if you need to chuck your daughter's coat in the wash, pm me. Happy to de-smell your clothes. Enjoy the fab weather at the mo.

I'm a 'local' and also believe people have every right to rent somewhere and have a holiday from their day to day hard work. Crikey. I rent places elsewhere!

People may of course be conflating holiday rentals with second homes. I find the second home thing hard to stomach. And think it's hugely damaging. But it's not against the law. Perhaps we Cornish should work harder at electing a government which would legislate against instead of returning the same old same old again and again! Until we do we really can't moan about it!

I take it you never go on holiday then?

Because if you ever rent an apartment or cottage etc you are doing exactly the same thing.