“The Old School House is a beautiful old building with lots of potential, however there were issues with our stay and the description and photos of the property should be updated.”
Arriving late Friday, we could tell that we were probably the first guests of the season, as the cleanliness of the house wasn’t great. There were dead flies on the floor of the conservatory and also dead flies and moths in the bathtub. There were also a lot of cobwebs throughout the house. It didn’t seem that each room had been checked prior to our arrival to ensure all was as it should be.
We then tried to cook some food in the oven. The oven clock light was flashing, so the electric had clearly not long been put on, which is fine, but without the clock set the oven wouldn’t work. It took us nearly half an hour to work out what the issue was. There were numerous buttons on the oven with no labels. Eventually, pushing two buttons together set the clock and the oven started. This was tiresome after a 7-hour journey.
The WiFi didn’t work during our whole week there. I sent a very clear video on the Saturday morning showing the issue, which was forwarded to the homeowner, who arranged a BT engineer. We agreed to stay in on the Tuesday morning to receive the engineer and arranged our days out around this appointment. Somewhere along the line, the appointment was moved to the Wednesday. At this point, I wasn’t prepared for this to be our problem, as we were on holiday and had planned our visits. One of the specific things in my search criteria was access to WiFi. It was clear on arrival that it wasn’t working, as the hub was flashing pink. You couldn’t miss it. This should have been checked when the house was being prepared. I also mentioned the cleanliness of the house, which was said would be raised with the cleaners.
There were light bulbs out or missing throughout the property, including the cooker hood light, and the fireplace lights weren’t working. This was disappointing, as we wanted to use this to make it feel homely for the grandchildren. I also needed to buy a frying pan, as the ones provided were unusable, and a roasting tin, as there wasn’t one and we were preparing a roast dinner for Easter Sunday. There were other issues, but these are the highlights.
There were no personal touches on arrival, just two pre-packed cakes on the side and a pint of milk in the fridge. There was no note or welcome pack, which did not give a good first impression.
Lastly, it seems the village store closed last year and is no longer trading. This was also part of my search criteria and needs to be updated in the property location details.
In summary, your beautiful house and your guests deserve more.
The wifi not working for your stay was unfortunate, as soon as we were made aware we did ask Openreach to resolve this while you were there, but Openreach can unfortunately only specify a whole morning or afternoon, rather than a specific time, we understand that you didn't want to stay in for this. Also, the engineers cancelled an appointment 3 times before they attended, this was outside our control and their attendance was regrettably then after you left. We are sorry for this inconvenience and it has now been resolved.
The maintenance team also confirmed the house was checked the day before you arrived, in rural settings at certain times of the year such as early spring when the countryside is awakening from winter, there can be occasional flies or moths that make their way into any property overnight.
I've asked the maintenance team however to make a thorough check of your other points raised, light bulbs, and pans etc, they would have willingly helped with these if they had known during your stay as this could have been rectified for you immediately. As a self catering property, we provide milk as a gesture but we are aware that some guests may have allergies or intolerances and so the welcome cakes that were there were prepacked and in their production wrapping to show ingredients, purely for guest safety. The pub/shop icon on the advert covers properties that have one or the other or both, we are sorry that the local shop has now closed but we can confirm that there is still a Tesco in Launceston, a short drive away.
Property Owner
