Court House Farmhouse

Due to not enough characters, my review is split between these 2 boxes. We visited in Nov 22 as a group of couples, aged 25-30, working professionals. House itself - basic, some rooms smelt slightly dingy and had moths in. Games barn is well equipped inc hot tub. BEWARE due to the acoustics, noise inside is amplified. This led to us inadvertently disturbing a relative of the owner, who then turned up unannounced, shouted at us in an extremely patronising, threatening and unpleasant manner and accused us of disturbing their special needs children who we did not know existed. Once made aware of this we vacated the barn, apologized on two occasions and avoided using the barn after 9pm thereon to avoid any further upset. I would suggest that the owners may wish to apply a games barn curfew to their extensive list of rules that you are asked to sign on arrival. Another thing to be aware of is that there is CCTV in the barn which can feel invasive & uncomfortable when you are in swimwear. Owners have very noisy, yappy dogs which are left outside 24/7 and bark constantly which can disturb your sleep. Garden enclosed, spacious and perfect for dogs. However there was unclear/conflicting information about this. After leaving the property we were accused of intentionally avoiding paying for dogs. We booked through booking.com which stated dogs are allowed and did not mention a fee, and there was no way to add a pet to the booking. Another website that the property is listed on states that 2 dogs cost £20 each. Unfortunately this was not mentioned at the time despite being easily resolved by a simple conversation, having seen the conflicting info we had come prepared and brought money but were not asked for it. (1/2)

5 days after arriving home, I had a missed call from the owners house (the same number I had to call to get the key safe number). I returned the call and spoke to what appeared to be a muddled older lady who initially denied calling me and then went on to explain that she was the owner and was submitting a complaint through ‘Helpful Holidays’ which is a company I am not aware of having booked through Booking.com who work with SykesCottages. The hosts relatives live opposite and come across as very suspicious and find excuses to check on you multiple times per day which we found invasive. Our group tidied, hoovered, and mopped the floors, took out the bins, washed up all cutlery and crockery however we were accused of leaving the house in an awful state which supposedly took 2 professional cleaners 10 hours to clean. It is difficult to know what else that we could have done to meet their cleanliness expectations, particularly as minimal Supplies were provided. I would question why the host is paying for a professional cleaner if they expect their guests to do this. I can only assume that the older lady is either confused, lying to us in attempt to retain our deposit money, or being severely exploited by her cleaning company. Later in the phone conversation, the lady mentioned that it was her daughter that cleaned the house which I pointed out contradicted what she had said earlier. To summarise - basic house, experience ruined by host/management multiple people and companies involved, all with different rules for which we were blamed for not following, they left us feeling uncomfortable and appear to now be trying to extort more money from us Owners need to reconsider their expectations, adjust their rules accordingly and display them transparently at the time of the booking so that people can make an informed decision about whether they want to book this property. (2/2)