Recently booked a cottage with rural retreats "Apple barn & apple store" near Abergavenny & had a horrendous start to our stay. We are 2 young families, each couple with a little one, ours is 16 months old & walking, & our friends' little one is 10 months old & crawling. Imagine our horror when on arrival the entire cottage was suffocating with the smell of "raid", and everywhere you look there were still twitching, dying bodies of flies - in the kitchen sink, the window sills, the floor, the bathroom, even inside the bath. Outside was pouring with rain, so we couldn't even leave the windows opened for long to vent the cottage. Eventually we decided the car was probably the safest place for the babies to stay, which wasn't ideal as they were already desperate to get out after the long drive to get there in the first place.
We eventually got rural retreat on the phone. Their total indifference was infuriating. "Some properties have problems with flies. I suggest you get the hovers out". No apologies, not a hint of anything out of the ordinary. When we explained the lack of ventilation given the torrential rain & the suffocating pesticides that would likely be harmful to children, their overriding message was "deal with it". We contacted the house keeper who did not answer the phone at any point during our 3 days there, nor did she return our call at any point when we left her messages. Rural retreat never answered any of the emails we sent including photographs showing the extent of the fly problem. They did not acknowledge there was even a problem.
I have been using rural retreats for nearly 15 years and have noticed that over the years there has been an insidious slipping of their standards. I think their indifference to the welfare of the kids on this particular trip was the final straw for us and we will look elsewhere for businesses that do care.