I don't think I mentioned the interesting apartment we had at Christmas in York. Our eldest son organised a three night stay as our Christmas present.
The apartment was about 10 to 15 minutes walk from the centre. It was in a new block close to university accommodation but the students were on holiday. He booked it through Air bnb.
We had a slight problem getting in but once that was overcome we opened the door and it looked pretty good with two bedrooms one of which was en suite, a separate bathroom and a kitchen diner of decent size with attached lounge.
But over the first hour we began to realise there were some problems. It had been raining and so, when we saw a small pool of water on the kitchen floor, we assumed it had come off our coats. But then, as we walked along the floor, we realised water was coming up from under the floor. Then my son sat on one of the settees and it collapsed with one of the legs coming off in a pile of sawdust.
We then found both lamps in our bedroom were broken, a dimmer switch in the lounge was broken. There was no way of locking the door of a balcony that looked out onto a car park we weren't allowed to use. That was because the key was missing.
Then there was the equipment or should we say lack of it. There were four of us so we had four sets of cutlery, four large plates, four small plates and three wine glasses. We later found the fourth wine glass cracked and in the boiler closet. There were no scissors or bottle opener or other basic kitchen items. We have friends in York and we went to theirs for a meal. Goodness knows what we would have done if they had come to us. They would have had to drink wine from a mug (just four supplied) and eaten off the table with their hands.
So we reported all this to the onsite manager who looked about 17. Jordan came up to have a look. He tut tutted, garumped and made a lot of encouraging sounds. "Oh dear that's bad," he said. "Oh my goodness that's bad," he said, "Oh blimey that needs to be fixed," he garumped.
Jordan promised to sort things out but in the meantime suggested that we might want to keep out of the kitchen due to the rising water problem. We did point out that this would be difficult if we needed to fix anything to eat or boil a kettle. But he seemed unmoved.
"Yes I see what you mean," he said. "I will get it sorted" and off he trotted. We got ready to go out to our friends but couldn't find the key to the apartment. Four of us took half an hour looking but found nothing. So my son called Jordan to ask if he had accidentally taken the keys along with his own when he left. He said he would get back to us within minutes. Three hours later he rang back to say yes he had accidentally taken the keys. They weren't returned to us until 9.30 the next morning.
When we left the apartment unlocked to go to our friends we left lights on and the television going to give the idea that we were still inside. We took valuables with us just in case.
During our stay nothing got fixed or repaired. To be honest we never expected it to be. We were keen though to ensure things were repaired before anyone else moved in. We made a formal complaint to Air b n b and got roughly half our cost back. They dropped the cleaning charge due to the fact that when we went into the apartment the mugs were filthy and one of the bowls still had encrusted corn flakes on it. I took photographic evidence of all this to back up our claim. Always take records that's my motto.
This experience was so different to a cottage we stayed in during the summer in the Cotswolds. Bagpuss Cottage in Curbridge was an absolute delight. It was in the grounds of the owner's house, had plenty of off road parking and so many nice little touches like Sky TV, a shelf of decent novels and a bottle of wine to welcome us. You don't need to be a genius to work out which one we will be returning to in the future.
I suppose we have been spoiled by the standard of properties we enjoy with the Holiday Property Bond. They are always of the highest quality and exceptionally clean. It has spoiled us for virtually everywhere else, apart from Bagpuss Cottage of course.