“The property was a bit dirty when we arrived, but the overall complaint was the cluster flies.”
These had gathered around the windows in the living room and in the folds of the curtains in the main bedroom.
The property clearly has a known issue with these flies, as they had (full!) fly traps on all the windows. The fact that no one had been in to clear these traps and deal with the build up indicates it had not been cleaned for a while - you could not miss them.
Instead, when we drew the curtains we were presented with 2/300 flies swarming the bedroom and house. We rang Sykes to ask for help or alternative accommodation. No help was offered and only a much smaller property was sort of offered, but only with manager approval. In fact we were told if we wanted a refund or the option of moving property we would have to remain in the house that night. The only assistance offered was help to clear them in the following day, but we had to remain in the property that night. So we spent the first 2-3 hours of our holiday clearing flies while the kids got upset. A truly shocking start to our holiday with even worse customer service.
The following day someone did come to the house to clear the traps, but left fly debris all over the bedding and no additional fly traps were left. We again messaged to ask for these and for someone to provide clean sheets. These calls were ignored for the rest of the week, so we had to take a trip to the supermarket to buy washing powder to do it ourselves at 7pm! The only positive was we were offered a 50% refund, however this took nearly 2 weeks to arrive.
Conclusion:
The house and location is nice, but let down by a poor cleaning regime, especially where there is a known issue with flies.
Sykes are useless and could not care less about their clients once they have your money. I will not be returning to one of their properties in the future and would advise any holiday let owner to avoid using them.
Thankyou for your feedback, I am sorry that you had such a bad experience with your visit to Little Berwick Cottage. I have changed my Housekeeper and have additional maintenance being undertaken including new windows, as well as new thatch with specific treatment to prevent future occurrences. Once again my apologies for the bad experience you had. I am pleased you thought the house was nice and I hope that if you maybe did choose to holiday at Little Berwick Cottage in the future you will be able to see the improvements. Best Wishes The Owner.
Property Owner
