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.

I rang the office at half 9 but there was no answer. Just steeling myself to try again.

do NOT be a typical mumsnet doormat about this, no need to steel yourself, call them every 5 mins until they answer!!

I am sorry to hear you are having such a crap experience, OP. Like everyone else, getting the lettings agency to move their arse and sort out the cottage. In the meantime, I would ignore the hostile locals and go out for the day - there's a lot more to Cornwall than just that shop and most of us are lovely.

It is a difficult situation for the long term residents of these places but…Cornwall etc does not belong to them, they are beautiful places to holiday in so naturally people want to go there. It’s not the fault of op, she shouldn’t be feeling guilty at all. If people can get more money for their property then please don’t tell me you wouldn’t do the same because I won’t believe you.

I haven't RTFT so someone may have already suggested this but a fishy smell is often an indicated of faulty electric wiring.

So you’ve never been on holiday to anywhere the locals also live? Of course you have.

As soon as I read your first paragraph I knew this would be Cornwall.

Yes the housing situation is bad there, but the unwelcome has been a problem for years. I used to live there after moving from the North as a child 30 years ago and was unwelcome then.

Depending on where you are situated I would turn up to their office in Redruth. They are less likely to fob you off in person.

Sorry you are dealing with this and good luck!

I haven’t RTFT either as have a toddler climbing on me, but we had an awful smell in our house once. It made me sick it was so bad. It turned out to be a blockage in the vent under the fridge (not sure how well I’m explaining that!) it was awful and we could smell it in every room. Tbh I’ve never smelled anything so bad in my life (other than the time I accidentally left a defrosting chicken on the side in our annexe and didn’t go back in there for 10 days, ye that was bad).

This is unfair to you, and I don't know the answer, but years ago our Cumbrian village turned holiday village over the space of a very few years. We had rented there for years, but wear kicked out for holiday cottage conversion. In 10 years the village lost its shop, school, post office. Every cottage for sale went for holiday lets/second homes. It used to have WI, Brownies, Cubs, all sorts of country village things and every one has gone. We go back and look at our garden sometimes.

You couldn't pay me to stay in Cornwall these days.

The attitude of ' locals' on social media and in the news is sneering and borderline hostile with tourists, they really do not deserve the income tourist bring.

I appreciate all tourist and desirable places are having issues with housing, but I think Cornwall takes it to another level.

Shame really, as it's obviously a beautiful and warm place , but nobody goes on holiday to be completely taken advantage of.

I’m so sorry to hear about your holiday. I have a holiday let in Cornwall, and been on a fair few self-catering holidays, so I’ve seen both sides of this. Last year was completely bonkers, so some locals are a bit jaded by the experience (our letting company had a phone call from one holiday maker whose apartment (not ours) had a cobweb outside which “completely ruined their holiday”), and some see letting as a way to make a lot of money without much effort.

Absolutely give the letting company a hard time - it’s their job to fix this, and the owner will have paid them a chunky commission to do so. Hope you get it fixed soon, but in the meantime try to find a beach and have a paddle- you’re in a lovely part of the world and the sun is shining

OP please don't let the posts about how you shouldn't encourage holiday rentals make you feel any worse than you already do .

And yes ,ring them every 5 minutes .You can do this .

There are ghost areas in London in which every home is a second, third or fourth home - Kensington, Knightsbridge for example; or entirely given over to business so empty at weekends - the city for example.

Property here is far far more expensive than in Cornwall, and the vast majority of born Londoners cannot afford to live in the area they grew up on, many can’t afford to live in London at all.

They don’t, however, have the same sense of entitlement that they are owed a home here.

posts about tenants being turfed out for holiday rentals isnt helping its not op fault

email them op keep a written trail going-maybe use someone elses phone if they ar epossibly avoiding your calls

In 10 years the village lost its shop, school, post office.

That’s villages everywhere it’s not specific to tourist areas.

Post office numbers have halved everywhere since the 80s, partly due to benefits being paid directly into accounts, and the government’s ending of the post office card.

Shops have gone due to pressure from supersized supermarkets and online commerce.

Who is it that sold up all these local homes to 'non-local' holiday let owners?

Oh - could it be - the locals?! Benefiting from the massively inflated prices paid by non-locals? Fucking over their beloved local friends and neighbours for a lorry load of cash?

Surely not ... they were locals!

OP - please find your inner anger.

I hope you get some help from the letting company

That's sad😢 it's like that in Ravenglass hardly anyone who works there lives there. I refuse to stay in holiday homes and give money to greedy landlords.

If the company has local offices can you turn up at the nearest one to speak to them face to face?

We have the same issues here in Wales. Nothing to rent, people being made homeless so that someone can have a jolly holiday. People here are getting really angry. We have a huge increase in the numbers of second homes, and many owners get around the second home tax by renting their house out as a holiday let when they aren’t there , so claiming it as a business.
I really wish people who say that they love Wales, would think about where they choose to stay and do it in a way that doesn’t destroy our communities and our culture. This applies to Cornwall too. Even things like emergency services are affected. When there are few locals left, then there is no Coastguard for instance. As that relies on local volunteers who can get to the scene quickly.
There are ways of having a nice holiday that don’t take a house out of the community.
Other than that OP I am sorry your holiday is spoiled, I wonder whether actually a rat or mouse has died somewhere ? They really can make an entire house stink to high Heaven.

Could be a gas leak.either way go to the office -use your power woman ! I know this isn't what you want to be doing on holiday but a grand of hard earned cash has been spent so it's your right.dont be fobbed off

Ask for another cottage.

Don't cover up the smell demand they come out to the cottage or you want your money back

I'm going to go against all the advice here. Do not spend money and energy getting rid of this smell. Hoovering, scrubbing, spending money on candles and febreeze? No way.
It's your holiday, and you've paid a lot of money for a place to say.
I'd constantly be on to the owners, it's very poor that this has not been taken seriously.

Nothing to rent, people being made homeless so that someone can have a jolly holiday. People here are getting really angry.

I hope they're getting 'really angry' with the (presumably) locals who are cashing in to make a fast buck, and not the tourists who book a holiday in good faith and come prepared to spend money in the local area.

And no, I don't have a UK holiday - or any holiday - booked and I only own the home I live in so I have no skin in this game either way.

It’s not your fault, if that were the case and it’s quite pathetic of the locals to take it out on holiday makers.