“We arrived on the Friday (first day of stay) in the evening after a long drive via Poole from a family funeral.”
On our arrival (around 8pm) we found that the boiler was not working. We then quickly attempted to put our little baby of 6 months old to bed in the cot, then found that there was NO cot in the property despite requesting this twice ahead of our booking. So, we had no heating and nowhere for our baby to sleep safely. I offered to my wife to drive us home, but we had already been travelling for over 7 hours so my wife decided to put a duvet on the floor and sleep as safely as she possibly could ...
On our arrival (around 8pm) we found that the boiler was not working. We then quickly attempted to put our little baby of 6 months old to bed in the cot, then found that there was NO cot in the property despite requesting this twice ahead of our booking. So, we had no heating and nowhere for our baby to sleep safely. I offered to my wife to drive us home, but we had already been travelling for over 7 hours so my wife decided to put a duvet on the floor and sleep as safely as she possibly could next to our baby. I was attempting to contact the 'out of hours' team at Sykes Cottages and Lakes Lovers but nobody answered. I left voicemails but didn't get a response. This was between 8pm and 8:30pm. I got two automated texts to say that somebody would be in touch within the next 20 minutes. We didn't hear anything. I was also on the phone to my friend who is a gas safe engineer who tried to talk me through getting the central heating boiler working. I video called him so that he could see the error messages on the boiler and he talked me through topping up the system and getting the boiler working again. We finally had heat albeit it took an age to get the old stone house anything near warm and comfortable. I woke in the morning various times as our baby was unsettled but also due to the glaring light directly outside of the main bedroom window - not helped by an almost translucent window blind in the bedroom. I noticed a missed call from an 01244 number, from 22:02. This was 2 hours after I had called on various out of hours phonelines. I am guessing that as it was Friday night the on call team must have all been in the pub! The next day we went to the rental office 'Lakes Lovers' in Windermere and told them of what happened on our arrival. They just seemed puzzled and said they would get a cot for us, with no sincere apology and no shock that my wife and 6 month old baby had to sleep on the floor in a cold house for the night. Quite unbelievable!! Around 3 hours later they dropped off a cot, and the gent said on delivery that "there should be one on top of the wardrobe so whoever should have put one there must have taken it out for some reason". This of course was not helpful, and still NO apology. We just left it there as didn't want to the weekend break (for my 40th birthday) to get any worse. The cottage was of poor quality and needs a full redecoration. From damp on the wall near the entrance door (due to obvious rotten/leaking gutters outside), to chipped skirting boards throughout the house, dusty floors around and under furniture (not great for baby on the floor), to a stained sofa. The cottage is neglected and I guess of the owner has ongoing bookings then they must be complacent and not bothered in the slightest. We have stayed in AirBnB before and never had the same issues like this with dog friendly accommodation. We stayed at a Sykes cottages rental in Symondsbury back in July this year and that was also dog friendly and also like living in a dog kennel for adults. It needs a full deep clean. Overall, totally dissatisfied and would not recommend this cottage to anybody. Apart from location and close to the lake, it was also very close (300 feet) to a booming night club that stayed open until around 02:00am. This was not mentioned on the booking site either.