This is a very strange review for various reasons. After the clients left I received this email on the 24th June from these clients
“ THANKS VERY MUCH FOR HAVING US. WE HAVE REALLY ENJOYED OUR TIME IN FRANCE. IT'S SUCH A BEAUTIFUL PLACE. tHE KIDS THOROUGHLY ENJOYED THEMSELVES TOO. LOTS OF MEMORIES MADE”
Then on 1 August, over 5 weeks later, we had this review. Ironically I received another review at the same time from Fabrice, who had just left on the Saturday, after a 2 weeks stay. His profession is a senior HEALTH and safety officer. A person who would have pointed out if there was a problem with cockroaches. In fact, he gave us a 5 star rating praising the house, pool, garden,and thanking us for a wonderful holiday.
As regards the points raised. We have had the house for 18 years. Never have we seen cockroaches there. Since the departure of these clients, we have been checking thoroughly, especially the kitchen, to see any sign of the cockroaches, and no other clients have indicated that there were any cockroaches present.
There was no mix-up with the booking. As the original booking took in the Saturday night I asked them if they could come a day earlier and leave on the Saturday Morning. I also offered 2 extra days at no charge. To this they agreed.
The old chairs in the garden, these in fact are the most comfortable chairs you would sit on. The client did not associate them with the old sofa in the T.V hit, Friends, or the other TV hit Frasier, with the old easy chair.
Mice, the charm of this house is that it is in the countryside.There is a lot of wildlife. Occasionally a mouse would enter the house uninvited. And hide away. It might hide in a sofa.
The sofa is in the downstairs bedroom, for use when a very large party is using the house. It has
not been used for 2 years. It was unfortunate that this customer chose to use it during a thunderstorm. It appears that a previous client had used it and folded it back incorrectly and broke it without informing us. We have a short period of time to complete a changeover and would not check the workings of the soffa if it was not going to be used.
This year we have the services of a housekeeper, whose only job is to thoroughly clean the house after every client. She is responsible for all the linen provided, ironing the sheets, pillow cases. She also checks to make sure there are no stains!, and that all the towels provided are of the correct standard.
Rubbish bins are collected every other week, with yellow bags, packaging etc, one week and black bags, everything else, the following week. We have no control over this arrangement.
However, we provide extra bins to cater for this. The client did ask me to remove one of the bins to a tip, but the tip will not accept this. In the end, I took the bin to my house.
This year, 5 months were spent on upgrading the house by installing a new staircase, and enlarging the dining room and enlarging a bedroom . Photos of these are shown on our publicity,
and many guests have remarked how good they look.
Also this year, most of the borders have had thick layers of wood chips spread over to reduce the spread of weeds and to keep the borders looking beautiful, as shown in the photos.
They left a day early because the weather had been really bad with thunder and lightning for the last three days and the forecast was for more rain. So they decided to leave a day earlier and I was there to see off and they had said how much they had enjoyed their stay.
It was very sad to read the review as I take the responsibility of looking after clients' holidays very seriously.