“On our first visit to The Old Garage a year ago, we arrived to find a stylish property, clearly well maintained and with a generous welcome pack awaiting us.”
Based largely on that pleasant experience, we booked to stay there again, but oh, what a difference a year can make! This time, there was no welcome pack at all. For the first time in 30 years of cottage holidays, there was not even a pint of milk in the fridge. Evidence of lack of proper maintenance soon followed. All the saucepans were covered in a brown grease and several items of cutlery were the found to have dried bits of food still on them. We therefore spent the first hour of our holiday cleaning all the cooking utensils. A precautionary wipe of table surfaces revealed they had also not been cleaned properly, and it later became evident that the floors were the same.
After a long and tiring journey, all you want to do is sit down with a nice cup of tea and biscuit, not to have to roll your sleeves up to do the owner’s work for them. What do we pay for, after all?
There were numerous further observations which included mould on several window frames, stains on cushions when they were turned over, decking rotting in places and the garden clearly overdue for some TLC.
We later brought this to the attention of Lyme Bay Holidays who informed us that the property had changed hands since our first visit and the new owner had brought a different approach to its management. Lyme Bay Holidays offered to send a cleaning team in immediately, but by that time, we had settled in and did not want the upheaval this would create. We advised that in our opinion, the property was in need of a deep clean all round.
We can only hope the new owner realises that you cannot trade on stylish looking images alone. There are plenty of other properties about whose owners understand the importance of cleanliness and of providing a welcome pack. Need we say more?
