La Pommeraie Country House

After a lovely week in this rustic but well equipped house, we had a bad experience in dealing with the owner. On arrival he seemed pleasant enough, however when we vacated the property (having paid extra for a cleaner at his request) his attitude had changed.

We explained that we had broken one plastic chair in the garden and that two of the wooden chairs in the kitchen had broken when people sat in them due to previous poor repairs. He admitted that the kitchen chairs had been broken previously and did not seem concerned by this. Neither did he seem bothered about the fact that we couldn’t use one of the bedrooms because some kind of large rodent was making gnawing noises throughout the night. Or that one of the children had been locked in the downstairs toilet for half an hour due to a broken lock.

However, as we were about to get into our cars, he stormed out of the house with a tablecloth. He complained about a few red wine stains, but did this aggressively, swearing loudly in English and French in front of our children. He then stormed back into the house swearing before we could say anything.

On returning to England, we emailed him to apologise for the tablecloth and received no response. We then waited for our refundable damage deposit to be returned. No response for over a week. We emailed him again and he then sent an extremely rude response referring to the state of the property, which we’d left practically as we’d found it – apart from cleaning the bathrooms, vacuuming upstairs and used towels, which we’d assumed was what we’d paid the cleaner for.

He also said that he was charging us for the replacement of the one plastic chair we broke and the repair of the two wooden chairs, which he had admitted had been previously broken.

We did not contest this as we just want our money back, to forget the bad experience of dealing with him and to remember the lovely holiday we had. However, he has still not returned our money – 18 days after we had vacated the property – and he is now not responding to any of our emails.

Apart from this experience, the house is lovely, the garden and pool were just what we wanted and the location is peaceful and great for long walks.

If you don’t mind dealing with a rude and erratic owner and possibly not getting your damage deposit back, a great vacation. Otherwise, AVOID!