French Vacation Home Rental Review
Booked through travel website: bookahouse.com
Home Name : Cadaques
Host and Hostess: Laurent and Bettina
The boat was quite lovely, our neighbors congenial, and despite some serious shortcomings, we are glad we did the rental. I must tell you, however, that we felt totally abandoned by the owners, Laurent and Bettina – whom we never met. They report sending a bunch of pictures through the internet explaining what needs to be done on the ship which apparently they thought was an adequate substitute for their not being present when we arrived to show us around. Finally I prevailed upon them to have a neighbor on the premises sketch things out via their instruction and then he could fill us in. At the last minute they defined such an individual and even though we hardly knew him he was very gracious and did his best to orient us. There was nothing he could do, however, when things went wrong. And the biggest thing that went wrong was the failure of the toilet disposal system. Instead of taking excretia down into some holding tanks they would accumulate in the toilets. As you can imagine, the ship soon became a very smelly place. Not wishing to add to the problem, whenever we had to take a dump we would walk across the street and make use of the bathroom in a hotel lobby. And this was not fun, especially on rainy nights.
We complained to the owners and they didn’t see how they could possibly get a plumber in there to fix the problem. We were there ten days and they couldn’t find a plumber in Paris during that entire time?!
They don’t have an answering machine on their telephone, so they were essentially unavailable even by phone. So for example when we ran out of water we had no way of finding out what we needed to do. In time I figured it out myself but how much easier it would have been had I been able to reach one of them and save me the bother.
Half the bulbs were burned out and no replacements available. I went to the supermarket to buy some bulbs but every socket on the boat seemed to require a different kind of bulb and all that I was able to replace were two. Again they should have made sure all the lights worked before they rented out the boat.
I tell you that we literally felt abandoned because they knew the problem we were having with the toilet and they didn’t bother once to call us up and ask how we were doing, assure us that they were finding a plumber, etc. they simply cut us off and there was no way we could reach them.
I’m sure they’re very nice people but they are not ready for prime time. They have this delusion that if they press “send” on their computer all will be well. They’ve done their duty. Somebody needs to tell them that that send button is no guarantee the email was sent, or if it was sent, no guarantee that it was received, or if received, recognized as important and thus read. All of us get dozens of emails every day and most of them are bullshit. In this case there’s no substitute for their being present, if not to actually greet us on the day of our arrival, surely by the next day. And of course they should have fixed that plumbing situation.
Quite frankly, their potentials for ruining our visit were so great I think as penance they should return our money. That should assuage my obvious anger sufficient so that I do not report my experience online for all the world to read, thereby putting an end to their brief career as landlords. Would you like to spend ten days in a small space that reeks of shit? Clearly they should stop renting out the boat until they get their act together. They can get away with it if things go well but as you know, things often go wrong and that’s when their negligence takes its toll.
You asked for a review. Well you got it. I shall consider the matter closed provided I receive my refund by October 15th.
Sincerely,
Martin Blinder, M.D.