“Rospletha Cottage is located in one of the most beautiful spots in Cornwall and probably the UK.”
We had an amazing few days exploring the local area, with the Minack theatre, the coves and the coastal path right on our doorstep! Simply stunning! Sadly, the first few days of our week were spoiled by the unclean state of the kitchen when we arrived. I had to put all the plates, cutlery and utensils in the dishwasher, wash the tiles, the shelves, the glasses. There was even a full cup of coffee left in the microwave, with mould on it. There were cobwebs in lots of places (stressed me as I am not a fan of spiders) and we weren’t able to open the French doors onto the patio until the owner ‘forced’ them open later, which we had not dared to do. The hinges were just very rusty, due to the sea air I guess. We were also put off by the fact that the owners were staying in their wooden chalet in the garden, right across the cottage’s patio, so sitting outside didn’t feel private at all. This chalet is neither mentioned in the cottage description, nor showing on any of the photos for the cottage on Sykes. Also, there IS a huge field at the back of the house, with sea views, but it is also the overflow car park for the Minack theatre, so every afternoon, we had hundreds of cars/vans and people just 100 meters or so from our rental. Again, something which is not mentioned in the description. The owners of the cottage / chalet had visitors coming across ‘our’ garden on two occasions…this was not acceptable. On the first night, we arrived quite late because of heavy holiday traffic. When I saw the lack of cleanliness in the kitchen (namely dirty plates and cutlery draw), I went over to the chalet to mention this to the owner (who had just welcomed us and said to come and see him if there were any problems). I thought they’d like to let their cleaning company know…well, I was not received well at all! I won’t go into the details as we did receive apologies the next morning but I was left shaken. Rospletha is an amazing place, but, as a family, we all felt the same: Rosphetha Cottage needs more cleaning, TLC and private garden space. Also, I would not have chosen this cottage if I’d known that we would be sharing the garden with its owners.
We are sorry you found so much to complain about. There seem to be 3 issues.
1. Cleanliness: You found one cup left in the microwave. One plate not clean on the back. An undisclosed problem with a spatula. Some cobwebs. None of this is acceptable and we apologise. Given your forensic examination of the property, we assume everything else was Immaculate.
2. The garden. As the website clearly shows there is no garden as such. The bungalow abuts a 3 and a half acre field. The acre closest to the bungalow belongs to it. The remainder belongs to the Minack who use the third of the field furthest from the bungalow as an overflow car park for approximately 2-3 hours 4 afternoon a week during their season. We have considered ;planting trees or building a wall but feel it would detract from the sense of space.
3. Given there is no garden it is axiomatic that we cannot share it with the occupiers of the bungalow so this allegation is simply untrue. The ‘chalet’ as you describe it is not only screened by a treebut at all times when we stay there we keep the blinds closed on the two windows closest to the bungalow. We are scrupulous in our respect for the privacy of our guests in the bungalow as is evidenced in kinder feedback on this thread. We note you logged that we had visitors on two occasions. We have no idea whether you did or not. Perhaps it is our privacy that is the issue! Finally if you are coming to Cornwall in the summer looking for solitude you are doomed to disappointment.
Property Owner
