“This is being published as I’ve sent this review twice to Heart of the Lakes along with photos on the 11 & 25 July 2022, but we have had no response, which is very poor.”
Review !
An interesting, quirky and peaceful house but beneath its charm lie some issues readers need to be aware before they book or before they arrive.
I wish I had known !
First, a positive - found a wasps nest in the roof space on day 2, which meant they were entering the house, and after calling Heart of the Lakes on Monday morning, they sent out their maintenance team - thank you Tony for spraying it & Keith who destroyed it - great great response and thank you to Gabriella who took my call and acted on it.
Another few positives - Plenty of hand towels and bath towels and I think they were relatively new, as they were lovely and soft. The wi-fi and 4G coverage was great and an added bonus especially as the cottage is remote. Great to have two fridges and the washer and separate dryer. Separate Freezer was helpful but it could do with a good clean and defrosting.
Now onto the issues that need addressing with some urgency by the owner (and to be followed up by HOTL), much of which has been said before on reviews but not acted upon such as wobbly table - its not hard to fix it as it been reported many many months ago by another reviewer. Made for interesting meal times plus don’t use the cork mats, as they stick to the table !!!
Access to the property was really challenging through a very very narrow gate on a dodgy driveway with overgrown bushes from the cottage next door, which is badly designed and had I known how tight it was, I would not have stayed - anything bigger than a normal sized car, forget it. I scratched the car through hitting the brambles that had not been cut back on the drive way to the gates, so I’m not happy at all !
Cleanliness - not very clean in places with multiple areas not been cleaned for many months such as behind beds, under beds, behind settees (found tissues), behind blanket chest (found unused nappy). Also some dirt when opening windows in the tv room and on the light above the Aga - finally, some worktops were sticky and not very clean so needed a wipe when we arrived.
Lots of surface mould in shower room on the walls, ceiling and mastic - not great especially for those in our party who had asthma. The window remained open for long periods to at least circulate the air.
Shower head - absolutely filthy.
In addition, for all new arrivals, please bring the basics such as tea towels, cloths, cleaning items, salt and pepper, milk, tea bags as nothing is provided apart from a very small cleaning pack that had 2 bin bags, 3 dishwasher tablets and one cloth in it (be £3 at best). Some of the plates, bowls and glasses were chipped (we reported those).
We even had to buy our own oven trays (which we took home - sorry), as the others were minging - that’s a Yorkshire term for disgusting.
The aga cooker dials also need addressing as you can’t see some of the numbers on so easy to leave on by mistake and that could cost money.
Finally, for those with young children and dogs, the garden is not really child friendly (steep banks and not enclosed) and not very dog friendly (not enclosed and lots of undergrowth). Again, when being charged an extra £20 to take your dog, I had hoped for an enclosed garden for my dog to be able to chill out.
I did point out some of these issues in my call to HOTL when ringing about the wasps nest and hopefully, they will get addressed at some stage.
Would I come again or recommend it to my friends and family, as it is now - sorry it’s a no and for those people paying top whack in the summer months, do bring your home from home basics as you’ll need them !
Should I have asked HOTL to come in and sort some of these things out - yes, probably but we knew that for the jobs to be done properly, it would take some time and we did not want to be disturbed especially, as we were celebrating a 21st birthday and wanted some rest and recuperation having worked through covid and it was our first family holiday for two years.
Come on Mr Owner, spend a few £’s on maintenance, remedial painting, improving the cleanliness massively and upgrading some of the kitchen items, and it will be moving to a four star as the listing says, not a two star in my view.
Note - I have provided HOTL with numerous photos to prove this is a truthful review, as I would never ever ever post a bad review without having the evidence. I post many positive reviews and it’s always with a heavy heart that I post but want others to have a better experience than we have had.
