“The cottage is in an out-of-the-way, very rural location and when the weather is bad it gets the full blast.”
Beautiful and a little off the beaten track, which is what we wanted. Lisdoonvarna and Doolin are a ten minute drive away. It is a lovely cottage, well fitted out when it was built, but the furniture, fixtures and fittings, china and linen are looking very tired. Light switches and the cooker were missing knobs, there is nowhere to hang-up and dry wet clothing. When we arrived the property had clearly not been cleaned properly - worktops and toaster covered in crumbs, kettle grubby, sink grubby, ...
Beautiful and a little off the beaten track, which is what we wanted. Lisdoonvarna and Doolin are a ten minute drive away. It is a lovely cottage, well fitted out when it was built, but the furniture, fixtures and fittings, china and linen are looking very tired. Light switches and the cooker were missing knobs, there is nowhere to hang-up and dry wet clothing. When we arrived the property had clearly not been cleaned properly - worktops and toaster covered in crumbs, kettle grubby, sink grubby, the master bathroom sink and toilet uncleaned, fridge not cleaned, and grubby finger marks, jam stains, cup rings and spills everywhere. Even the door handles were sticky, one in particular had a thick layer of residue. Ironically, there was a cupboard stuffed full of cleaning products which we used to spend the first two hours of our stay cleaning the property before our friends joined us. Over the next 24 hours the four of us were still periodically dusting or wiping! There was no welcome pack which is fine but not what one might expect of a 'luxury' cottage. With no vacuum cleaner available it was difficult to sweep up effectively with only a dustpan and brush. There was a dead bird in the wood-burning stove (three more birds came down the chimney during our stay which we let out - the external cowl had no wire netting around it) The washing machine and tumble dryer were filthy - black mold in the washing machine and the tumble dryer had clearly not been cleaned out for ages, the filter was thick with fluff and the water reservoir was full to the brim. As we needed to use both appliances we had to spend time and energy cleaning them until we were happy to put our clothing in them. A chap turned up when we arrived but seemed unconcerned about the poor state of the place although he did come back and replace two lightbulbs as requested. We contacted the owner who was very apologetic and offered to refund 50% of the cost of the rental. We waited two weeks for him to sort things out with Sykes Cottages as we didn't want to leave feedback before he had time to do anything. Unfortunately nothing has happened. Overall we had a great holiday with local friends but, for the money we could have expected better from this accomodation. At least the beds were comfortable enough and had been changed and fresh towels laid out, although the linen on one of the beds was inside out. We left the cottage in a much better condition than when we arrived but things do still need need to be addressed. At least the next guests must have benefitted from our cleaning!
